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", new research demonstrates that spending does matter. The authors-C. Kirabo Jackson, associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, Rucker C. Johnson, associate professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, and Claudia Persico, a doctoral candidate in human development and social policy at Northwestern University-show that "increased school spending is linked to improved outcomes for students, and for low-income students in particular…Increasing per-pupil spending yields large improvements in educational attainment, wages, and family income, and reductions in the annual incidence of adult poverty for children from low-income families. As they also show, it matters how the new money is spent-such as on instruction, hiring more teachers, increasing teacher pay, hiring guidance counselors and social workers. Money well-spent "can profoundly shape the life outcomes of economically disadvantaged children and thereby reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Money alone may not lift educational outcomes to desired levels, but our findings confirm that the provision of adequate funding may be critical.""

This NPR article on the school situation in Philadelphia is heart wrenching. Poverty impacts everyone, especially children. For those who have never seen it, it is hard to understand. I remember in Mumbai, seeing kids with a tiny notebook and pencil down to the nub that had been used the whole school year - kids were erasing unimportant things (if they still had an eraser) to add more to their notebooks. Yes, there are many places that desperately need school supplies and help and Philadelphia is one of the many cities who are really struggling. Take time to read/listen and understand and set up this holiday season to help. ""Clothing, books, all of the school supplies, backpacks," Kantor says. "And you see some kids that are really suffering. Some kids don't ever have a dime. They have one pencil, they have a spiral book, and they don't have any of the supplies." Other teachers say they've had to bring in cleaning supplies - even toilet paper. But lots of nonmaterial things gnaw at Kantor: She says some parents, many of them single moms, seem overwhelmed and disengaged. Kantor says she knows they're stressed out and tries to reach out by phone, but is too often left discouraged."

Students and teachers are taking the 4 liter challenge. Here's the curriculum and information to bring resources and instruction to children of all ages. "To make the 4 Liter Challenge an even more enriching experience, we've created a free curriculum that introduces themes of water, poverty and human rights to any 7-12th grade classroom. The 4L Curriculum is multidisciplinary and designed to align with national standards. It's built on an innovative "See, Judge, Act" model and will greatly enhance your students' 4L Challenge."

This might be a good time to talk about poverty as superstars are living on just a little. I don't know how they count this because the heating and air on their homes would exceed $1.50 a day. $1.50 a day is the global figure that defines extreme poverty. "Ben Affleck, Josh Groban, Sophia Bush and Debi Mazar are among the celebs who have committed to take the 2013 Live Below the Line challenge issue by The Global poverty Project. They will live on $1.50 of food and drink a day (no Starbucks for him!) April 29-May 3 to raise awareness about extreme poverty."

Nice set of manipulatable visualizations to explore basic data and trends and relationships dealing with poverty, gender, and level of educational attainment.

Why small, organic, agency-driven schools are important.  Addresses the extraneous factors important to school reform such as poverty, drugs, violence, etc.

Debating global issues is an important part of global competency. Here are some important and sometimes controversial issues like Child soldiers, nuclear weapons, child labor, Aids, poverty. Some very nice frameworks to use as we are ending the school year. After you finish your year end tests, you should consider some global competency lessons in your classroom to help students be aware of the world and also develop critical thinking skills. This is a great place to start.

3rd World Farmer simulation.

Well made games highlighting the work done by the UK Department for International development to elevate poverty. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

A resolution being submitted to the National Council of Teachers of English blaming current US problems on poverty not the education system. (On a note from me: The country is crying out for change in education. Change can be done to you or by you. To defiantly state there are no problems is to deny the truth. Every system has issues. No school is perfect. But right now, the national opinion is that there are problems. I'd be offering solutions you can live with or live with the solutions handed down to you by a clueless bureaucrat who only was in a classroom when he/she was a child. The one thing that is an advantage is that when industries standardize, we often see innovation. How much time is wasted in aligning with 50 different state standards?))

I got a nice thank you note from Miranda Adams from the blogger post I wrote yesterday. I hope you'll take time to read her third grade blog. Here is her mission: "I teach third grade in a HIGH poverty county. I am the ONLY teacher I know of in my area that uses a blog to try to bridge the home-school gap but I'm at a loss for how to do it. I truly want to make a difference because I feel like I am the only person some of these kids have." What a beautiful teacher and a hero! This is a lovely blog and obviously a work of love!

The heavy focus on measuring teacher quality can give the false impression that teacher quality is everything. Study after study, however, has shown that poverty is a stronger factor than teacher quality in predicting achievement. The best teachers in the world will have limited impact when children are undernourished, have high levels of lead in their bodies, live in noisy and dangerous environments, get too little sleep, and have no access to reading material.

Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing. Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully-for the next day or the year ahead-by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo