Access to early childhood programs
Schools in high-poverty neighborhoods should offer access to early childhood programs, starting at age 3, that support children's healthy growth and development. These programs should be comprehensive to facilitate the acquisition of their social and emotional skills, provide the health and nutrition services traditionally available through Head Start, and implement a knowledge-rich curriculum especially designed to systematically bolster students' word and world knowledge and other cognitive skills.

Improved teaching quality
Research indicates that effective teaching is the most important school factor in a child's education. But, because high-poverty schools are often challenging places to teach, they suffer disproportionately from small applicant pools and high teacher turnover—and, as a result, their teaching force often includes a disproportionate number of new and less-experienced teachers.

The best way to attract and retain a well-qualified teaching staff in high-poverty schools is to establish the conditions for student success (including a state of the art system for diagnosing reading weaknesses, the expertise and resources to immediately and massively intervene when a child is reading below grade level, high educational expectations by all staff, safe and orderly schools, a knowledge-rich curriculum, excellent professional development, effective principals and decently maintained buildings) supplemented by a hiring policy that gives hard-to-staff schools an early crack at filling their vacancies first, and offers pay incentives negotiated between the school district and the teachers union.

Intensive assistance for the most struggling schools
Evidence is mounting that school improvement is aided when the school district can target the most struggling schools for intensive special assistance and support—and direct reporting to the superintendent. Where existing school time is already used very well, but more time is needed for tutoring, enrichment, or staff development, it may make sense to negotiate additional educational time including a longer year in these targeted schools. The direct accountability allows the superintendent's office to ensure that problems get immediate top-level intervention, whether the problem is an ineffective principal, loud construction work taking place during the school day, delays in textbook orders, broken computers or the need for speedy return of diagnostic information.