This commentary discusses three articles (Jukes et al., 2017, McCoy et al., 2017, and Aber et al., 2017), which respectively focus on Kenya, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They all cite poor educational outcomes as a key motivation for developing and implementing new programs, and all three articles provide helpful evidence for ways to make progress to improve these dismal outcomes. The question is: is enough being done? The three studies are important and useful because they separately address three major (and well-documented) impediments to student learning in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These include: (1) the enormous challenge of providing all students with a qualified and effective teacher; (2) many students simply are not school-ready when they first walk into a classroom--that is, they do not have the social-emotional and cognitive skills to benefit from instruction from Day 1; and (3) schools and teachers often do not address the full range of developmental needs of their students. [This commentary discusses Jukes et al., 2017 (EJ1147933), McCoy et al., 2017 (EJ1147934), and Aber et al., 2017 (EJ1147937).]