Sure, reading and math are important. But a student’s real joie de vivre, joie d’apprendre, doesn’t come from baloney like “spelling” and “arithmetic.” As everyone knows, it comes from the playground. To assess how well schools are responding to this all-important need, Fordham has undertaken a rigorous review of each of the fifty states’ playground standards. Hippie-land California scored the highest. “That state totally had the coolest, by far,” said Amber Winkler, Fordham’s research director. “Cali’s jungle gyms were strong in both of our evaluation categories—‘primary colors and size,’ and ‘climbing opportunities and swing capacity.’” Read more here.