Gap between best and worst DC schools growing (Washington Examiner): “The gap between the District’s best- and worst-performing schools has been growing amid the most intense school reform in the city’s history [...] The American Institutes for Research found that, if two students have the same test scores in 2010, but one attends a wealthy, high-performing school and the other attends the opposite, the student at the wealthy school likely would have outpaced the latter student substantially in 2011, even though they were on equal footing the year before.” For example, on average, students in Ward 3 schools demonstrated a 70.8% two-year growth percentile, while students in Ward 8 received a 46% growth score.

State Of The World’s Mothers Report 2012 (Huffington Post): This year, Save the Children ranked Norway, Iceland, and Sweden as the best places to be a mother. “In addition to its annual ranking, the 2012 report focuses specifically on the issue of children’s nutrition. One in four of the world’s children are chronically malnourished or stunted [...] malnutrition kills as many as 2.6 million children and 100,000 mothers every year. Millions of others are left struggling with the physical and mental impairments of stunting.” Over half of the world’s children do not have access to vitamin A, zinc, and water and sanitation — universal access to these perhaps could save as many as 680,000 lives.

Battered and Bruised Minds Lead to Homelessness (TIME: Battleland): “The Department of Veterans Affairs first-ever large-scale study of homeless vets shows that the vast majority of homeless vets have mental disorders [...] Dealing with veterans’ mental health may be just as important in preventing homelessness among vets as dealing with their lack of housing;” the study shows that “78?83 percent of the newly homeless diagnosed with mental disorders at the end of the study, were diagnosed before they became homeless.” Additionally, the “Homeless Incidence and Risk Factors for Becoming Homeless in Veterans” report also followed 300,000 veterans who left active duty between July 2005 and September 2006 until October 2010; while none of these particular veterans had been homeless before, more than 4% became homeless at some point during that period.