Here's what preschool advocates will always tell you -- early education is the most effective way to close the achievement gap, changing the arc of children's lives. The advocates are right: I wrote a book, The Sandbox Investment, that demonstrates that these small miracles do happen.

On October 19th, as the Senate HELP Committee dives into mark-up of the long awaited overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, one group of children's advocates will try to frame education reform through the tight focus of educational outcomes and opportunity for students in foster care.

Using...

Does class size matter? School districts think so: that's why they're keen on small classes. Parents think so as well. That's why they pay through the nose to send their youngsters to private schools that boast small classes.

The researchers are split. The gold-standard study -- the

When it comes to kids' issues, the rule of thumb in Washington is usually "children last." Not this time: While the recent budget deal trimmed many federal programs, there's actually more money going to two signature children's initiatives, Head Start and child care.

Head Start, the last surviving veteran...

Representative Paul Ryan, the architect of the GOP's long-term budget proposal, would hotly dispute the claim that he hates kids. He'd tell you that he's a good family man, a good father to his three children and a good churchgoer, and there's no reason to question those bona fides. Like...

With the dread high-stakes No Child Left Behind reading and math tests looming, public schools across the country are in lock-down mode. School administrators fear being consigned to the hellish status of a school "in need of improvement" under the No Child Left Behind Act. That's why so many schools...

In the political arena, the old lifesaving motto is reversed: it's "children last." Children don't matter because children don't vote, the adage goes. That's why government spends just $1 per child for every $9 it spends on seniors.

Don't get me wrong -- this isn't a war between the...