A key Republican said Wednesday the Senate GOP will fast-track two conservative priorities — a bill that shields states from Common Core or other national education standards and a state alternative to Obamacare exchanges, as they seek to test President Obama's bipartisanship. Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican and chairman of the...

Sen. Lamar Alexander is collaborating with the leader of Vanderbilt University in an effort to reshape federal regulations on thousands of colleges and universities across the country. Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos traveled to Washington, D.C., Tuesday to testify before the Senate education committee, which Alexander chairs. During his...

College regulations may make the cost of obtaining an education more expensive for students, Republicans say.  “How many billions of dollars could we save if we reduced the administrative burden?” Senate Education Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) asked Tuesday during a hearing on education reform. During the hearing,...

The Senate will vote to reauthorize the Higher Education Act by the end of the year, Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters today. “We’ll get it done this year,” Alexander said after a Senate HELP Committee hearing on federal regulations in higher education. “I see no reason why we can’t finish this in 2015. At least,...

A proposed 0.9 percent cut in payments to health insurers for Medicare Advantage plans will hurt seniors and the disabled, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander says. Medicare Advantage provides health benefits to more than 16 million elderly or disabled people. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the proposed cut Friday. In response,...

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is among 22 Senate sponsors of the American Liberty Restoration Act, S. 203, a bill that repeals the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that requires people to have insurance. "How can we continue to enforce the individual mandate when the law doesn't clearly ensure that millions of Americans are allowed to...

A top Senate Republican says lowering the definition of a full-time employee to anyone who works 30 hours or more per week would lower the nation's work ethic. "It is a strange definition — one that sounds more like France than the United States,” Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said Thursday during...

President Obama was in the right church but the wrong pew when he proposed providing free community college tuition for some students. The president was right to celebrate the Tennessee Promise to make two years at community colleges or technical institutes tuition free for graduating high school seniors. Using the presidential bully pulpit in this...

There is nothing like a visit from the president of the United States to shine the spotlight on a really good idea. Gov. Bill Haslam's really good idea was to make Tennessee the first state to say to every high school graduate: Two years of community college or technical education are yours, tuition-free. For the last 30 years, Tennessee's greatest...

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s involvement in student testing and school accountability would be greatly curtailed under draft legislation U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is circulating as a starting point for fixing the Bush-era No Child Left Behind school-reform law. States would be required to set high standards to measure student...

Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander has three main priorities for his committee: The first is fixing No Child Left Behind. Next, he’d like to turn to the Higher Education Act and the third is reforming the Food and Drug Administration. “That’s the agenda that I hope for,” Alexander said today on the Senate floor....

Republicans are hatching an ambitious plan to rewrite No Child Left Behind this year — one that could end up dramatically rolling back the federal role in education and trigger national blowouts over standardized tests and teacher training. NCLB cleared Congress in 2002 with massive bipartisan support but has since become a political...

Obamacare has failed Americans in many predictable ways: It has increased premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for many; it has added to the deficit that our children and grandchildren will have to repay; it has decreased choices for many Americans, with smaller networks of doctors and fewer drugs covered on the plans sold in the exchanges; it has...

This month, I joined Senator Mike Lee of Utah in calling for repeal of a law governing federal construction projects that is giving unions the upper hand and costing taxpayers billions. The Davis-Bacon Act, which became law in 1931, requires all contractors and subcontractors working on federal construction projects worth more than $2,000 to pay...

WASHINGTON — THIS year, more than 20 million college students will complete the dreaded 108-question Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the Fafsa. Most do it again every year they’re in school. Some pay someone to help them. Colleges hire thousands of staff members to assist. Too many students are so intimidated...

The president is waging a public-relations campaign about income inequality in this country, but rather than focus on growing the economy and encouraging businesses to hire, this administration has fallen back on stale, bankrupt ideas that don't help workers achieve more. The latest is a rule proposed by the National Labor Relations Board to speed...

On the same day that the president discussed income inequality during his State of the Union address, I introduced legislation that would allow $2,100 federal scholarships to follow 11 million low-income children to any public or private accredited school of their parents’ choice.         This is a real answer to...

The Senate this week will vote to pass and send to the president’s desk a bill to help prevent future tragedies like the meningitis outbreak that has caused 16 deaths and so much pain in Tennessee.  This bill is the result of an agreement I helped the Senate and House reach to clarify who is in charge – who is on the flagpole...

The Internal Revenue Service violated the First Amendment rights of the American people -- and their trust -- when it targeted conservative political groups in Tennessee and around the country for additional scrutiny during the 2012 election. As Congress investigates just how deeply the problem goes, it's important to make sure those responsible...

A new law I worked to help enact lowers interest rates for every new federal student loan this year, making it easier for 11 million borrowers — including 200,000 Tennessee students — to pay for college. Undergraduates will pay 3.86 percent interest instead of 6.8 percent under previous law, graduate students with Stafford loans will...