This issue addresses the policies and practices associated with sustaining school readiness and boosting achievement for young children throughout the early elementary years. All three studies support the notion that an aligned and coordinated set of policies and practices linking early learning with the early elementary grades will maximize a return on investments and help ensure later academic success. State policymakers are beginning now to look for ways to fill the gap in education policy and practice that links school readiness efforts and school improvement efforts. Policymakers face three key questions: (1) where does an expanded education continuum begin--at birth, at age 3 or at some other critical point in a child's development; (2) how do we effectively create linkages between and across early education and early elementary school programs; and (3) what characteristics of an elementary school have the capacity to sustain and increase children's learning in the early grades? Each of the three studies in this issue reviewed addresses one or more of these questions. While there is no "right" answer, each paper provides readers with options and opportunities that may help focus their own unique education policy and practice priorities. This issue includes: (1) Pre-Kindergarten to 3rd Grade (PK-3) School-Based Resources and 3rd-Grade Outcomes (Brett V. Brown and Kimber Bogard); (2) Making the Case for P-3 (Kristie Kauerz); and (3) PK-3: An Aligned and Coordinated Approach to Education for Children 3 to 8 Years Old (Kimber Bogard and Ruby Takanishi). (Contains 3 endnotes and a list of resources.)