The State Alliance is designed to engage the participating states in a process that will enable them to match the educational performance of the highest performing countries in the world. The states in the network send delegations of state officials and others to benchmark policies and practices in the top-performing nations. Alliance staff and partners provide state policy and practice audits, and, using the audits and the benchmarking research as inputs, assist the states in preparing and implementing strategic plans. The Alliance also draws on the internationally benchmarked programs of America's Choice and the National Institute for School Leadership to address the problems of the lowest-performing schools and districts in the state. These two strands of the Alliance work are designed to come together in highly coherent and powerful state strategies for improving state educational performance. The initial network of states participating in the State Alliance will be announced in early 2007