"Applied" education is the best path for the poor. Don't teach the 3-Rs. Teach them how to fix their problems: 1) fight the cycle of poverty 2) weaken gangs 3) reduce crime and drug usage 4) renovate local housing, schools, and infrastructure 5) create and run local businesses 6) employee all teenagers after school and during the summers, etc.

Once they have pass those classes, they can learn the other stuff.

And this is how we should pay for it. Sell treasury bonds like we would to raise funds to improve our national infrastructure. In other words, invest in poor people in such a way that you can repay the investment from their future taxes. Specifically, pay poor people to work their ass off to fight poverty. (No person should be paid to do nothing; that is a horrible idea.) Allow the wealthy who want to reduce their taxes to keep $x in taxes for every $y they invest in hiring poor people to fight the causes of poverty. In fact, we should create poverty fighting companies who complete and measure their success by the quality of life improvements they cause. The higher performing companies lower the taxes of their investors.

(This isn't even expensive. Paying a teenager to avoid a life of crime costs $1000s/year and putting them in jail costs $10,000s/year. Furthermore, providing teenagers with IUDs costs $100s and saves $1000s.)