First, new findings hold promise for reducing learning gaps and barriers and increasing the achievement of all children. More is now known about which early social and emotional, cognitive, physical, and academic competencies enable young children to develop and learn to their full potential. Such findings are useful in determining curriculum content and sequences for all children. But they are especially important in helping those children most likely to begin school with lower levels of the foundational skills needed to succeed and most likely to fall farther behind with time— among whom children of color, children growing up in poverty, and English language learners are overrepresented. Another key aspect is ensuring that children who have learning difficulties or disabilities receive the early intervention services they need to learn and function well in the classroom. Research continues to confirm the greater efficacy of early action—and in some cases, intensive intervention—as compared with remediation and other “too little” or “too late” approaches. Changing young children’s experiences can substantially affect their development and learning, especially when intervention starts early in life and is not an isolated action but a broad-gauged set of strategies.40 For example, Early Head Start, a comprehensive two-generational program for children under age 3 and their families, has been shown to promote cognitive, language, and social and emotional development.41 The success of Early Head Start illustrates that high-quality services for infants and toddlers—far too rare in the United States today—have a long-lasting and positive impact on children’s development, learning abilities, and capacity to regulate their emotions.42 Although high-quality preschool programs benefit children (particularly low-income children) more than mediocre or poor programs do,43 fewer children living in poverty get to attend high-quality preschool programs than do children from higherincome households.44 Findings on the impact of teaching quality in the early grades show a similar pattern.45 In addition to this relationship of overall program and school quality to later school success, research has identified a number of specific predictors of later achievement. Some of these predictors lie in language/literacy and mathematics; others are dimensions of social and emotional competence and cognitive functioning related to how children fare in school.