Amid the cacophony of special interests fighting to be heard in statehouses and on Capitol Hill, a cadre of current and former chief state school officers is elbowing its way into the nation's education debate at a time when states are taking more control of K-12 education. A little more than a year old, Chiefs for Change is an invitation-only group of nine current and two former state chiefs whose causes include teacher evaluations tied to student achievement, more school choices for families, rewards for successful schools and more-intensive interventions for failing ones, and more-transparent accountability systems. The group has taken this "bold, visionary" agenda, as its members call it, on the road: to Congress, where they often testify before the Republican-controlled House education committee; to state capitals, where they've touted school choice; and to the U.S. Department of Education, where they've urged Secretary Arne Duncan to grant states a longer accountability leash in exchange for holding them to a higher bar. Though the chiefs say it's far too early to gauge their influence, they also say it's not too early to see some results--especially at the state level.