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Aligned to goals:

• 2.1: Provide more insight into the agency's decision-making process.
• 2.3: Collect and use input from the public and other stakeholders in decision-making.

This past year Secretary Duncan and senior staff visited all 50 States on a Listening and Learning Tour to hear from parents, students, and the general public about the No Child Left Behind Act and education reform. Americans were invited to join the discussion online.

The staff took the lessons they learned from across America and included them in the Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

This Blueprint for revising the ESEA asks States to adopt college- and career-ready standards, and rewards schools for producing dramatic gains in student achievement. The proposal challenges the nation to embrace educational standards that would put America on a path to global leadership.

The Blueprint provides incentives for States to adopt academic standards that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to create accountability systems that measure student growth toward meeting the goal that all children graduate and succeed in college.