Sen. Lamar Alexander

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) abandoned his Obamacare bailout package, citing lack of Democrat support for the measure.

U.S. Education secretary Betsy DeVos has touted a move toward the end of federal control of education, but more states are finding the Trump education department – much like that of former President Barack Obama – is still attempting to control their decisions from Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump lamented that an Obamacare repeal may take until 2018 in an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Super Bowl Sunday.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the federal education department was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee along party lines, 12-11.

Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), says he is delaying the initial vote on Besty DeVos, nominee for secretary of education.

Senate Democrats on the chamber’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee pressed Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearing Tuesday evening with questions about her financial contributions, her knowledge of federal education laws, and her intentions toward the nation’s public schools.

Republicans should create a “rescue crew” for people who rely on Obamacare before Congress repeals President Obama’s signature legislation, says the chairman of the Senate committee which oversees health care.

A press release from America Rising Squared, the research arm of PAC America Rising, is announcing a letter signed by 20 governors in support of Betsy DeVos as the next head of the federal department of education.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence is planning to meet with House Republicans on Wednesday to discuss Obamacare repeal and replacement plans. Eager to save the signature piece of legislation of his presidency, President Barack Obama plans to meet with Democrats on the same day to strategize on how to fend off the GOP’s attacks.

Establishment Republican politicians have boasted the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) prohibits the U.S. secretary of education from coercing states into adopting the Common Core standards.

Sen. Lamar Alexander told U.S. Secretary of Education John King during a hearing in April that his proposal to regulate a requirement that federal education dollars supplement state and local spending rather than take their place violated the newly passed “bipartisan” Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

After celebrating the “bipartisan” passage of his new federal education law that replaced No Child Left Behind, Sen. Lamar Alexander says he has “disturbing evidence” that the newly confirmed U.S. Department of Education secretary is ignoring curbs on federal overreach in education Alexander says are in the new law.

The U.S. Senate voted Monday to confirm former New York State Commissioner of Education John B. King, Jr., as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.

A new poll from Middle Tennessee State University shows Donald Trump holding a strong lead over second place Sen. Ted Cruz in Tennessee, which will be one of the states voting in the important March 1 “SEC Primary.”

Establishment Washington Republicans could not say enough this past week about how the 1,061-page Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reduces the federal government’s role in education and that it eliminates the fed’s coercion of states to stick with the unpopular Common Core standards. Perhaps most significant to these Republicans is that the bill was a self-proclaimed model of “bipartisanship.”

The U.S. Senate approved the conference legislation known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a measure that – once signed into law by President Obama – will replace the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law and will serve as the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio missed a Senate vote that advanced the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a conference bill that is poised to replace the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.

Alexander, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees education, and ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, congratulated each other numerous times on the floor of the Senate for completing the 1,061-page “bipartisan” conference legislation, much of which was apparently crafted behind closed doors and passed by the House last week after having been published for review only two days earlier.

Sen. Lamar Alexander’s final draft of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reauthorization bill is a 1,059-page piece of legislation that House and Senate education committees decided upon after several months of backroom deals and only two days of open “conference.”

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reauthorization bill was approved by a conference committee – by a vote of 39-1 – after just several hours of “conference.” But the bill will not be published in final form for lawmakers and parents to read until November 30 – just two days before it is voted on in the House on December 2. As Indiana parent Indiana parent Erin Tuttle says, “House members will be forced to vote on a bill they haven’t read. The American people expected a new style of leadership under Speaker Ryan, not more of the same.”

Many in the GOP reportedly refrained from voting until the last minute and some changed their votes under pressure from Republican leadership. Only one conservative amendment, introduced by Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) was adopted, by a vote of 251-178, that would allow parents to opt their children out of standardized testing.

It’s worth noting that in the half-century since the ESEA was passed as part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” billions of dollars have been spent – by both Democrat and Republican administrations – on education and so-called “helpful” programs for “disadvantaged” children, and yet Democrats are still fighting for more federal control and federal programs and subsidies in order to “close the achievement gap.”

The House’s version of the redo, known as the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), was pulled from the House floor by GOP leadership in late February after it was determined the measure lacked sufficient support. Grassroots parents’ groups – many that have been fighting against the Common Core standards in their states – voiced their concerns that the Student Success Act still required excessive federal intrusion into the right of states to set their own education policies.

Republican leaders seem poised to resume attempts to convince the conservative base of their party that the bill will reduce federal involvement in education and return it to the states and localities.

Sen. Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) rewritten draft legislation that would reauthorize No Child Left Behind (NCLB) will likely not allow Title I dollars for low-income children to follow them to schools of their choice, an outcome that would be a win for the Obama administration.

House Republicans have withdrawn a controversial bill that would have reauthorized the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law after both conservatives and liberals came out against it.

As expected, President Obama is threatening to veto a House Republican bill that would reform the No Child Left Behind law.

The conservative Washington, D.C.-based American Principles in Action (APIA) is urging Congress to oppose the Strengthening Education Through Research Act (SETRA), which the group states would extend federal psychological profiling of children through increased research on “social and emotional learning.”

Will the Republican-controlled Congress renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (ESEA) and permanently lock states into federal control of education?

As the debate heats up across the nation over the renewal of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), House Speaker John Boehner – writer of the original NCLB law – says he supports annual statewide testing, which also has the support of House Education Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-MN).