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Friday Frenzy: On Poverty, the NEA, and Mrs. Obama

By Michele McNeil — February 29, 2008 1 min read
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Good stuff you—or I!—might have missed this week:

Sen. Hillary Clinton has a new plan to cut child poverty in half by 2020 by boosting benefit levels for food stamps, making the free school breakfast program universal in all low-income communities, and creating a $1 billion “child opportunity” fund to find innovative solutions. A noble goal, and I say good luck because this is a significant barrier to education. When I was at the just-concluded winter meeting of the National Governors Association, Pedro Noguera, the executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education in New York City, said the single biggest thing that all low-performing schools have in common is a high concentration of poverty.

My colleagues David Hoff and Alyson Klein examine the Democratic candidates’ education positions with a fine-tooth comb. Be sure to read to the end, to the insightful comments left by some EdWeek readers.

Sen. John McCain has a giant NEA target on his back, union watchdog Mike Antonucci details.

And read about Michelle Obama’s take on No Child Left Behind (kids are being “tested to death”) and raising kids while helping her husband run for president (kids are No. 1).