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On January 20, I joined millions of Americans and millions more around the world to watch the inauguration of our 44th president. Bad knees kept me out of the crowd, but I dutifully taped the day for family and friends who went out to be counted. I beamed at the image of the soon-to-be president, head back, eyes closed, breathing in the wonderful music played by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman.

Policymakers increasingly view youth development and after-school programs as solutions to a host of problems confronting youth, communities and our country overall. Yet, funds for these programs as a whole are scarce and when resources are devoted to training or workforce development, they appear to be included as afterthoughts or minor priorities.

As the year comes to a end, several projects at the Forum are reaching major milestones. The Ready by 21 Quality Counts sites celebrated the end of the first year and planned ahead to the second and final year of the initiative.

Change is coming. Not just to the White House, but to Ready by 21 communities across the country. Stay tuned for exciting updates on our Ready by 21 rollout plans in the next issue of Forum Flash. Also check out our 3 latest publications, a Michigan Dropout Summit and more!

This commentary highlights the work of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, a collaborative of mature, city and county-wide nonprofit OST intermediaries, to develop and adopt common youth-, program- and system-level measures that are easy and cost-effective for local systems to implement.