"In short, the budget should go further to ensure that children's achievement at school should reflect their ability not their background, " she said.

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Under-achievement is seen at primary school, where national tests in maths and English show both groups are less likely than others to reach the expected level, and continues up to GCSE level and beyond.

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Now aged 54 and married with a child, he said he did not connect his experiences at school with years of under-achievement at work, a failed marriage and binge-drinking until he had therapy after a breakdown in April 2005.

BBC: Patrick Raggett

Laura Clancy, chief of staff at charter-school nonprofit Achievement First, has seen her share of business refugees looking for what they think will be a soft landing or a hero's welcome doing philanthropic work.

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The staff at this school is struggling to boost achievement.

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Obesity and hunger affect school achievement and health care in fairly obvious ways, Vilsack said, while speaking to a group at the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center.

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Critics of standards-based reform argue that, in seeking to raise student achievement in core academic subjects as measured by the new assessments, teachers and school administrators have narrowed the curriculum at the expense of artistic, affective, and other "non-core" subjects.

UNESCO: II Part Analytic Section