Through this planning grant, we will leverage the Educare Learning Network as a platform for change to critically examine, innovate, and systematically evaluate ways to amplify and address racial equities and disparities in the early years, resulting in lifelong resolutions. Similar to the history of early care and education with the HighScope Perry Preschool Program and the Carolina Abecedarian Study, Educare's history rises from one school in Chicago primarily serving Black children in a low-resourced community. While Educare schools in combination with the Educare Learning Network (ELN) serve as a hub of innovation, research, practice, and policy for many early care and education programs serving primarily children, birth to age five, from low-income households (e.g., Head Start), evidence shows that Black children and children in Black-majority schools are not thriving at the same level as their peers or other schools. These racial disparities are seen in the K-12 system and due to many complex factors of opportunity gaps and structural racism. In collaboration with the Black-majority Executive Directors and their school staff and the Educare Learning Network, a core group of researchers will engage in a 12-month process that will result in a solutions-focused white paper that will set up a research innovation agenda that will systematically examine practices, programming, and policies that ensure equitable learning opportunities and dismantle structural racism, concentrated disadvantage, and its effects, leading to children's school and life success.