LOS ANGELES--When she began teaching a class of second-graders in South Los Angeles in 2002, Amy Davis expected she'd occasionally hit snags with issues like lesson planning. But she figured she'd have little trouble relating to her mostly low-income black and Latino students. After all, she was raised nearby, in a household headed by a single mother who for years survived on welfare and food stamps. Like her students, Davis knew what it was like to grow up poor.
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