Chair's Press

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 16 – The Senate today passed by a vote of 81 to 17 the Every Child Achieves Act, the bipartisan agreement by Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to fix the No Child Left Behind law, which is seven years overdue. Alexander said: “Last week,...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) released the following statement today on House passage of the 21st Century Cures Act:   “The House has worked diligently on its legislation to spur innovation and reform the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of...

“Not only is there consensus about the need to fix No Child Left Behind, there’s also remarkable consensus about how to fix it. That consensus is this: Continue the law’s important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to states, school districts, classroom teachers and parents the responsibility for deciding...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on the nomination of Andy Slavitt to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:  “I will be interested in hearing from Mr. Slavitt whether he is ready to work with Congress to make the...

The House on Wednesday arguably passed a bill that will have the most impact on the GOP presidential nomination of any this year. That is saying a lot considering the House (and Senate) passed Corker-Menendez (to give Congress an up-or-down vote on any final Iran deal), trade promotion authority, the first significant entitlement reform bill (the...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 9 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on House passage of legislation to fix No Child Left Behind:  “Newsweek magazine calls No Child Left Behind ‘the education law everyone wants to fix,’ so it’s hard to overstate...

MYTH: The Every Child Achieves Act allows for federal involvement in state standards. FACT: FALSE. The bill explicitly prohibits any federal involvement with State standards. The HELP Committee incorporated language from bills introduced by Sen. Pat Roberts and Sen. David Vitter that prevents the Secretary from reviewing state standards,...

 “This is a real answer to inequality in America: giving more children more opportunity to attend a better school.” – Lamar Alexander WASHINGTON, D.C., July 8 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today offered an amendment (Click HERE for video) to the bill being debated by the...

Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., rose to the Senate floor Wednesday to tell his colleagues that state and local governments know best when it comes to educating students. Alexander was speaking in support of a K-12 education bill that would replace No Child Left Behind. "We need to show some humility and recognize, as...

Senators began work in earnest Wednesday on a bipartisan bill to replace No Child Left Behind by congratulating themselves on finally taking up legislation that is eight years overdue, and then unanimously passing an amendment to support school libraries. That comity is likely to yield to more vigorous debate in the days ahead, but for the moment,...

Pell grants, state aid, modest loans and scholarships put a four-year public institution within the reach of most. Paying for college never is easy, but it’s easier than most people think. Yet some politicians and pundits say students can’t afford a college education. That’s wrong. Most of them can. Public two-year colleges, for...

Next week the United States Senate will begin debate on a bipartisan agreement to fix No Child Left Behind. I negotiated this bill, the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, with the Senate education committee’s Ranking Member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. We found a consensus about the urgent need to fix this law as well as a remarkable consensus...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 7 - Senate labor committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) announcement that it would suspend its call for briefs on whether employees in right-to-work states should be forced to pay union fees, even if they are not a member...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., today sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and to U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services Sylvia Burwell, urging them to base the final 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans on “sound scientific evidence and medical...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 7 – As the United States Senate today began debate on his and Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) bipartisan bill to fix No Child Left Behind, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said the bill reflects the shared belief by both Democrats and Republicans that lawmakers should respect the judgments of those...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is making another run at rewriting the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law, even as the White House urges changes that the administration says would ensure that schools be held accountable when their students are seriously lagging their peers in other better-performing elementary and middle schools. The...

           Before the Democratic Leader leaves the floor, in a few moments, the Senator from Washington and I will make our opening statement on our proposed committee legislation to fix No Child Left Behind. Before I do that, I want to say to the Majority Leader first, to express my appreciation for his putting this...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate, for the first time in 14 years, will debate an all-new federal education policy this week. The bipartisan proposal would do away with the No Child Left Behind law and reduce — but not end — the federal government's role in public elementary and secondary education. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and...

When it comes to setting standards for America’s public schools, there’s a remarkable degree of consensus: The system the federal government has in place—known as No Child Left Behind—doesn’t work. Fixing it, however, is about to set off a new round of fierce political combat in Washington, D.C., and draw in 2016...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 30 – Senate labor committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on the Department of Labor’s proposal to more than double the salary threshold for exemption from overtime pay: “Just imagine how discouraging this rule will be to the working mother who can no longer...