Merita Irby gave a presentation at the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) State Leadership Conference on May 2, 2008, in San Francisco, CA. The speech discussed the importance on the role of community/school partnerships and focused on a new way of doing business outlined in the “Leadership for Change” report from the National Superintendent of the Year Forum, 2007.

As part of the Forum's commitment to support Quality Counts sites, the Forum, along with Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development, co-sponsored Governor Culver's dropout prevention summit aimed at creating urgency and developing action plans to respond to the dropout crisis of minority youth in 15 Iowa communities. Karen Pittman traveled to Des Moines on May 7

Below are featured clips from the press conference announcing the national launch of the Ready by 21™ Challenge, aimed at helping state and local leaders change the odds for youth by changing the way they do business.

Ready by 21 isn't a program or a campaign or even an initiative. It is a challenge to all who care about children and youth to learn a different approach to the tasks associated with trying to manage, make or measure change at any level from the classroom to the capitol.