On Nov. 29, 2016, the United States Department of Education released its final regulation for implementing the accountability provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act – here is the problem with this rule: it specifically does things or requires states to do things that Congress said in our law fixing No Child Left Behind that the...

A town hall meeting on the future of the Affordable Care Act scheduled for Thursday took on fresh urgency with last week’s announcement that Humana would no longer participate in the law’s health insurance exchanges. Humana, the sole ACA exchange insurer remaining in the Knoxville area, announced plans to exit the...

There is an Obamacare emergency in Tennessee. Humana’s announcement that it is pulling out of all Obamacare exchanges could leave 40,000 residents in Knoxville with no health care exchange options next year — they may have an Obamacare subsidy but it’ll be like holding a bus ticket in a town where no buses run. This news from...

The United States Senate should follow the lead of its Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in voting to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. I have worked with Mrs. DeVos on education issues in Tennessee for several years. I know her to have both a heart for our school children and the...

As a pastor and community servant, I try to be not only an ear but also a voice for families across my city. When it comes to the education of our children across Memphis, I try to represent children and parents who don’t have an association or lobbying group pushing their agenda in legislative chambers. However, there has been a person and...

Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s pick for Education secretary, is fighting back against allegations that she is not familiar with a federal law requiring public schools to provide services to help educate children with disabilities. In a Jan. 24 letter to Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., DeVos said she was “committed to...

Betsy DeVos, the nominee for secretary of education, said in a letter to a senator after her confirmation hearing that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a "wonderful example of what happens when parents are regarded as full partners in their child's educational decision-making" and that she is "committed to enforcing all...

In a day when approval of Congress barely exceeds 10 percent of poll respondents and few believe the body ever gets anything meaningful done, the 21st Century Cures Act is, if you will, a remedy of sorts. The $6.3 billion bipartisan legislation, shepherded through the Senate by Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the...

Aboard Air Force One headed for Tennessee on a frosty day two Januarys ago, President Barack Obama gave Sen. Lamar Alexander a preview of his Precision Medicine Initiative, the plan to get genomic and other data from a million Americans to use in developing targeted drug therapies. The Tennessean, who was about to take over the Senate...

On the heels of bipartisan House approval, the Senate handily approved the wide-sweeping 21st Century Cures Act, which includes $1 billion in state grants to treat opioid addiction, by a 95-4 vote Tuesday afternoon.  Now the bill will move along to President Barack Obama’s desk, where it will likely be signed into law. Obama has...

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is touting the 21st Century Cures bill, which the Senate and House have now passed and President Barack Obama is expected to sign, as "the most important bill of the year." The sprawling 996-page legislation is the most significant health care law passed by Congress since Obamacare, and it won bipartisan backing,...

With the election over, speculation is rampant on what this means for politics and policy in 2017.  We need to take a step back however, and realize there is critical work to be completed by Congress in 2016, to set the stage for a new generation of medical innovation, and demonstrate to the American people that Washington is not...

(Washington, D.C.) — Sen. Lamar Alexander, it seems, is taking the long view on one of the major achievements of his legislative career, the Every Student Succeeds Act. His goal: making sure the new federal K-12 law isn’t implemented in a way that negates neither Congress’s intent nor the good will that emerged after its...

Last August, Douglas Oliver, 52, of Nashville, was legally blind. Today, he can see. His story is just one of many stunning breakthroughs in biomedical research that Congress is seeking to accelerate in a “21st Century Cures” Act.   Early last year Vanderbilt University doctors told Mr. Oliver that there was no cure for the...

Tennesseans have heard a lot of talk from the Obama administration about making college affordable and keeping costs down. So it's hard to see how President Barack Obama can justify the final overtime rule out of his Labor Department last week that could raise annual tuition at one Tennessee college by nearly $850 per student. One of the most...

WASHINGTON — Doug Oliver was legally blind. Now he can see. For the first time in a dozen years, Oliver can make out the dollops of sunlight sparkling on the tops of parked cars. He can read road signs, count the leaves on a tree and clearly see the faces of loved ones, including his wife, Ann, whom he met after his vision had begun to...

Sen. Lamar Alexander ripped into Education Secretary John King Jr. during a hearing on Tuesday, accusing the Obama administration of trying to unilaterally change key provisions of the nation’s new federal education law. Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate’s education committee, was particularly frustrated...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander has had his hands on a lot of bills, but he believes none has been as far-reaching as the one he's working on now. "I will probably never have a chance to work (again) on something this important as a U.S. senator," the Maryville Republican said. Alexander and the committee he chairs completed work last...

Senate Republicans introduced a measure Wednesday which would require a federal agency to comply with the same employment data collection rule it plans to impose on private employers. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the main federal agency tasked with resolving workplace discrimination. It introduced a proposal Jan. 29 that...

U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) accomplished something few of their colleagues in Congress could during the past year: pass bipartisan legislation. The pair worked tirelessly to craft a deal that would reform K-12 education, dismantling the controversial No Child Left Behind law that required schools to...