Guided by research on brain development, we developed a family-based training program for preschool children at-risk for school failure. I will describe the research that guided the development of our program and results from a study of this program. Children in our program showed improvements in brain functions for attention, cognition, and behavior, and parents showed improved parenting behaviors and reduced stress. I will also describe genetic and gene by environment (training) interactions in these data. These results lend impetus to the broader deployment of evidence-based education programs that target at-risk families to reduce academic achievement gaps.