Mr. Gates has identified the 50 state school superintendents as critical stakeholders in his plan. With this identified audience, he's turned what seems an impossible task into a more manageable one.

Now he has an identifiable audience, with identifiable needs. He will be able to eliminate some of the noise that surrounds such a large issue because of this.

Ultimately, the goal is to build the best possible performance based system, but Mr. Gates saves the time and effort associated with re-crafting rejected ideas, by identifying and including necessary input from his crucial stakeholders (state superintendents) on the front end.