For Norwegian children, access to child care that supports a joyful childhood is a right.

The Sebastian Indian Social Projects (SISP) works with socio-economically disadvantaged communities, providing social services like healthcare and employment assistance with a primary focus on educating youth. SISP has focused on educating the local female population, which has helped empower them economically and led to several women receiving jobs outside of their village. SISP has also educated several students who were forced to drop out of traditional school and provides supplementary activities along with their standard education, such as skating and coding clubs.

The African American Youth Harvest Foundation in Austin, Texas, is aiming to close the gap for young Black boys who are not ready for kindergarten. The nonprofit works closely with families, and helps provide for immediate needs, like food, childcare, and utility bills. In the future, it hopes to employ social workers to address a wider swath of critical concerns and address learning issues among both Black and Hispanic boys, from birth to age 5.

Mounting evidence points to an increasing disparity in the educational achievements of those children who attend and complete pre-school, and those who do not. The Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program is a national home visiting initiative for low-income families that is working to bridge the gap. They provide learning curriculum, guidance, and parenting support for disadvantaged families in their homes, so that their children can be equally prepared to succeed in school.

Minnesota schools began a comprehensive program aimed at assisting children of minority groups to successfully navigate the college application process and push them towards higher education.

Since 2014, low-income parents who enroll their children in Indiana's state grant program, On My Way Pre-K, have watched their students gain important literacy skills and self-confidence. However, only four percent of the state's qualifying four year olds currently participate in the initiative. Teachers are now brainstorming strategies to eliminate barriers to parents applying for the funding.

Delaware has been working to make sure that all college-ready graduates, regardless of socioeconomic status, make it to college. With financial reasons standing in the way of many qualified students, the state has worked on multiple levels to make this a possibility.

Through programs across the country, nurses, social workers, or trained mentors offer support to new or expectant parents, imparting skills to help them become better teachers for their children. Through regular home visits with the families, these programs are working to close an achievement gap between rich and poor children that starts as early as just nine months into a child's life.

Studies show the educational divide between affluent and poor people starts early on, before the age of 3, when children learn cognitive and emotional skills that are difficult to almost impossible to learn later as adults. In Central Harlem, parents were not applying methods that stimulate a child’s early development. So, Geoffrey Canada created Harlem’s Children Zone, an 8-week program where parents learn how to help their children. He also expanded his program to include charter schools. The first group of third graders had reading scores above the state average.

The Wisdom Hub Nursery and Primary School enrolls students alongside those who are differently-abled, allowing them to learn in the classroom together. The combined classroom approach teaches students to embrace diversity, nurturing an inclusive educational environment where each child can thrive. The Wisdom Hub opened in 2013 and has since seen over 300 children with special needs cross into secondary school.

EarlyBird, a dyslexia screening program run by the South Central Board of Cooperative Educational Services, screened about 200 children for signs of dyslexia last year to connect them with extra help in the classroom. The program is already proving to be effective in the school districts participating in it and it’s set to expand to more schools during the 2024-2025-school year.