It's interesting, I've been following this same article in another forum and the conversation has gone a completely different direction. I had to go back and reread it. Two things jumped out at me:

1) The point the author arrives at here: "If not the usual suspects, what’s going on? It boils down to this: The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class [and low SES] students. This difference in preparation persists through elementary and high school."

This difference in preparedness is what I see at our local school, which pulls entirely from those two SES groups. I left kindergarten round-up my first time and cried. They had given us a small stapled booklet of nursery rhymes and pleaded with the group of parents to read to their children 5 min a day throughout the summer. 5 min? We read and sing for hours, just 'cause it's fun and we have time to do it. Clearly from the plea, this was not the case in many homes.

Having a background in early childhood educ, the author's point resonated with me and was hopeful. He's pointing out what we know -- the gains in those early years are irreplaceable. And he's calling us to do something different, because the strategies used during k-12 aren't cutting it.

If we're only concerned about our child(ren), then it's enough that we're making choices to prepare them. But if we're concerned about everyone's children, then we need to advocate for systems that help them all succeed, which brings me to another of his (the author's) points....

2) "investments in early childhood education pay very high societal dividends."
And he mentions maternity/paternity leave and other key interventions that we could choose to provide.

Working with teen moms, I've known new moms who are back to work days after giving birth, working long hours to bring home minimal income, because they have no options. And think about the gentrification in many of our cities -- workers with the longest commutes in those areas are often those earning the lowest wages, with kids spending the longest hours in childcare.

What if we not only helped parents parent well, gave them paid parental leave as in other developed countries, and also made all childcare amazing? That's what I took away from the article. So far to go!