Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this measure.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the Alexander substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, and that the bill, as amended, be read a third time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3594, which was received from the House.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Once again, I thank Senator Baldwin, Senator Casey, and the other Senators who participated in our colloquy, Senator Ayotte and Senator Portman. They have all pushed hard to see that we get a result on the Perkins loan extension. They have been effective advocates and skilled legislators, and I am grateful for their hard work. There have been other Senators who have spoken on the floor and have been very passionate advocates. I don't think I have a list of all of them, but I know, for example, Senator Collins made her case here on the floor and in the conference on our elementary and secondary education bill for the students of Maine who receive Perkins Loans. I know Senator Blumenthal was here on a day when I was here as well making his case for students in Connecticut. I know the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Johnson, was here making a vigorous case for the students from Wisconsin, as did Senator Baldwin. Senator Boozman of Arkansas and Senator Cochran of Mississippi have also been advocates as well as those who participated in the colloquy. We have had a broad group of Senators involved both on the floor and in the negotiations. We now have passed a bill in the Senate. It will go to the House. Hopefully, it will be considered and become a law by the end of the year. I look forward to working with my two colleagues on the education committee to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, with the goal of simplifying and making more effective the Federal Student Aid Program so American students can afford and can attend college or university. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to enter into a colloquy with Senators Ayotte, Baldwin, Casey, and Portman.

Mr. ALEXANDER. If it is agreeable to Senators, I will make a few remarks introducing the subject of the colloquy, and then the Senators will speak in that order. I am here today to talk about the Federal Perkins Loan Program Extension Act of 2015, which is a substitute to H.R. 3594. I have a bill which has been taken to the desk. The original sponsors of the bill, which I will ask to be considered at the conclusion of the colloquy, are Senators Ayotte, Baldwin, Johnson, Casey, Cochran, Boozman, and me. We have debated the Perkins loan several times on the floor of the Senate. Twice, I have objected to the House bill to extend the Perkins Loan Program. This is a program that was set to expire in 2012, since the 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. That date was not extended the last time we reauthorized the Higher Education Act. This is a program that, in 1998, the Congress and the President decided would expire in 2012. The expiration of the loan program should not have been a surprise to anybody. It has not received appropriations since 2004. The Department of Education reminded institutions that the program was expiring earlier this year. I objected to the extension on the grounds that the current Federal loan program--one that all students, not select students, are able to use--has a lower interest late and better repayment options than the Perkins Loan Program. I objected because I believed there should only be one Federal loan program for undergraduate students, as well as one for graduate students, and one for parents. That was the testimony we received in our education committee, the HELP Committee. Senator Bennet and I and a bipartisan group of Senators have introduced something called the FAST Act, which would, in a variety of ways, simplify the ability of students to apply for Federal student aid. One of those ways is to simplify the maze of student loans that are available to students today. Sometimes students end up with more loans than they even know they have. Then they have trouble paying them back. However, in recent weeks, I have had many conversations with Senators. Some of them are on the floor today and are Members of this colloquy, who have suggested to me they would like to have the Perkins Loan Program extended until we can address it in the Higher Education Reauthorization Act. Senator Ayotte, Senator Baldwin, Senator Collins, Senator Casey, Senator Johnson, Senator Portman, and Senator Blumenthal are some of the Senators who have eloquently made that case on the floor of the Senate. They came and argued the merits of the Perkins Loan Program. Most of the arguments relied on the use of these loans by students to provide for financing up to a student's full cost of attendance to meet a gap in funding that is above their direct Federal loan limits for the very neediest students; or they argued it was an important resource to students in urgent circumstances such as when a student's parent loses a job. I listened to these Senators. I have listened to university presidents and others who have talked with me about it. As a result, today I come here with what I believe is a fair compromise, cosponsored by the Senators that I mentioned, to address the specific issues raised. We propose a 2-year extension of the Perkins Loan Program while we work on a long-term solution for simplifying the student aid program. This extension will give us time to move forward on the Higher Education Act reauthorization next year, and come to a consensus on how to simplify the Federal student aid program, which has become so complicated that many students will not even apply for loans, and many of those who do don't realize the opportunities they have to pay the loans back according to very generous terms. That being said, I think it is important for me to say that I am still, frankly, skeptical of the merits of this duplicative loan program, which only serves 5 percent of all student loan borrowers and amounts to a little over one-half of 1 percent of all the outstanding federal student loans we have in the country today. The program provides an average loan of about $2,000 and illustrates the complicated mess our student loan system is in today. My colleagues, cosponsors, and I have worked on this compromise to extend the Perkins Loan Program for 2 years for all eligible undergraduates and 1 year for current graduate students who have already received a Perkins loan for the graduate degree they are pursuing. This is what the substitute does. It extends the Perkins Loan Program until September 30, 2017, for all eligible undergraduates. It provides 1 year of additional Perkins loans to graduate students who have already received a Perkins loan. Under the Direct Grad PLUS Loan Program, graduate students have the ability to borrow up to the cost of attendance annually and have no aggregate or lifetime loan limits. In other words, you don't need the Perkins loan as a graduate student to meet costs because you can get as much money as you would need under the regular direct loan system. The bill requires that the institutions award the maximum annual limit of subsidized direct loans prior to awarding a Perkins loan for current undergraduate Perkins loan borrowers. It requires that institutions award the maximum annual limit of both subsidized and unsubsidized direct loans prior to awarding a Perkins loan for new undergraduate Perkins loan borrowers. It requires the institution to disclose to Perkins loan borrowers the following: that the program is ending; next, that this loan is not eligible for certain repayment and forgiveness benefits available to borrowers utilizing the Direct Loan Program. For an undergraduate, the interest rate is lower in the Direct Loan Program and they have a more generous way to repay the loan than under the Perkins loan. We want the Perkins loan borrowers to know that. We want them to know they may consolidate their Perkins loan into a Federal direct loan to receive the benefits of the Direct Loan Program; that is, the more generous repayment terms. We want them to know that Federal direct loans and Perkins loans have different interest rates. We want them to know that if they are receiving a Perkins loan as an undergraduate today and they have received one in the past, that their institution has already awarded all subsidized Federal direct loans for which they may be eligible for that year. In other words, the Perkins loan is their second loan. Many students borrow more than they should and then have trouble paying it back. We want them to know that if they are receiving a Perkins loan for the first time, their institution has already awarded all subsidized and unsubsidized Federal direct loans for which they were eligible that year and that this is their third loan. If this whole Federal student aid system sounds complicated, it is. There are millions of students across our country who take advantage of generous Federal grants and loans--more than $30 billion in grants that they don't have to pay back every year. There is a total outstanding debt of federal student loans of $1.2 trillion, almost $100 billion in new loans every year. However, it is such a maze and so complicated that many students don't understand how much they are borrowing. So that was my purpose in objecting to an automatic extension of the Perkins loan without thinking about it in terms of how we simplify it and make it easier for students to understand the tangled maze of loans in the Federal student aid system. I thank my colleagues who are here today for being so eloquent and so aggressive in pointing out the benefits of the Perkins Loan Program and for coming up with the suggestion that we find a fair compromise so that over the next 2 years the Perkins Loan Program will continue but that during that time, both our education committee and the full Senate and the House will have a chance to review and make simpler the Federal system of grants and loans for students who attend our 6,000 colleges and universities in the country. At this point, I recognize Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire, who was one of the first to come to the floor and very persuasively argue about the importance of some continuation of the Perkins Loan Program.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. She has been a passionate advocate for the Perkins loan recipients in New Hampshire and across this country and played a major role in developing this 2-year compromise that permits us to continue the program while we look at the future. Senator Baldwin of Wisconsin was one of the first on the floor to point out the importance of passing the House bill and dealing with this issue. She is a member of the Senate's education committee, what we call the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Both she and her colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Johnson, have vigorously advocated for an extension of the Perkins Loan Program. I thank Senator Baldwin for her hard work and look forward to working with her not just on passing this bill but working in the committee to come to a proper resolution on student aid.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wisconsin. This is the second time in 2 weeks that she has played a role in an important bipartisan decision on the floor of the Senate regarding education. She has made a major contribution to our Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and through her willingness to work in a bipartisan way with other Senators who she mentioned, we have been able to get a bipartisan result. Hopefully, it will be passed by the end of the year, and then we will work together in committee to find the right solution. No Member came more quickly to me to talk about the Perkins Loan Program than did the Senator from Ohio, Rob Portman, who has an eye for the budget with his broad experience as Director of the budget and with a large number of colleges and universities in Ohio. He is here today to discuss the Perkins Loan Program, along with Senator Baldwin, Senator Ayotte, and Senator Casey.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio. He is exactly right. I know of no State that has more small colleges of the kind that would take advantage of Perkins loan probably than the State of Ohio. It is important to say that Senator Baldwin, Senator Casey, and Senator Ayotte have been urgently making their case on the floor over the last several weeks and have done so in such an effective way that we have been able to come up with a bipartisan compromise. The more of that we are able to do, I think the more confidence the American people will have in their Senators. So I appreciate his leadership in making this possible. Another Senator who is a member of the Senate's committee that oversees education is the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey. He, too, has just completed work on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which many people thought we had no chance of passing this year and which we passed by a very large margin. I thank him, as I did Senator Baldwin, for working in such a constructive way. Some people look at the Senate and say: Well, you all are always arguing. Of course we are. That is what we do. That is like looking at the Grand Ole Opry and saying: You all are always singing. We have different points of view--and we do on the Perkins loan. But once we make our points of view known, we then do our jobs and we say: OK. Now we need to get a result. If all we wanted to do was to make a speech or make a point, we could stay home or get our own radio show. But we are Senators, and our job, having had our say, is to get a result. So I thank Senator Casey, the Senator from Pennsylvania not only for his work on this compromise on Perkins loans but also for his work on our efforts to fix No Child Left Behind. I look forward to his comments.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I once again thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for being both a passionate advocate and skilled legislator in helping us come to a result here that meets most of the goals of the Senators who spoke about this, at least for the next 2 years, and gives us a chance in our committee to continue to work on it.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the vote on the adoption of the conference report, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 6 o'clock p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, yesterday I extended my appreciation to Senator Murray's staff and to mine--some she noted yesterday. Some of them have been working on this bill for 5 years. I am deeply grateful to them. I have deep appreciation for their hard work, their ingenuity, and their skill in helping us come to this result. Without their hard work and tireless effort, we wouldn't have been able to reach the successful conclusion on the passage of this important bipartisan, bicameral bill. On Senator Murray's exceptional staff, I would like to thank Evan Schatz, Sarah Bolton, Amanda Beaumont, John Righter, Jake Cornett, Leanne Hotek, Allie Kimmel, and Aissa Canchola. On my hardworking and dedicated staff, I would like to thank David Cleary, Peter Oppenheim, Lindsay Fryer, Bill Knudsen, Jordan Hynes, Hillary Knudson, Jake Baker, Lindsey Seidman, Allison Martin, Bobby McMillin, Jim Jeffries, Liz Wolgemuth, Margaret Atkinson, and Taylor Haulsee. I would like to thank some of my former staff who participated in this multiyear effort, but have moved on to other endeavors, including Marty West, Diane Tran, Matthew Stern, Patrick Murray, and Haley Hudler. On Chairman Kline's staff, I would like to thank Juliane Sullivan, Amy Jones, Brad Thomas, Mandy Schaumburg, Leslie Tatum, Kathlyn Ehl, and Sheriah Yousefi. On Congressman Scott's staff, I would like to thank Denise Forte, Brian Kennedy, Jacque Chevalier, Helen Pajcic, Christian Haines, Kevin McDermott, Alex Payne, Kiara Pesante, Arika Trim, Rayna Reid, Michael Taylor, Austin Barbera, and Veronique Pluviose. I would like to thank the hard-working staff of our Senate HELP Committee members and conferees, who played important roles in reaching this agreement, including Steve Townsend with Senator Enzi, Chris Toppings with Senator Burr, Brett Layson with Senator Isakson, Natalie Burkhalter with Senator Paul, Katie Brown with Senator Collins, Karen McCarthy with Senator Murkowski, Cade Clurman and Natalia Odebralski with Senator Kirk, Will Holloway with Senator Scott, Katie Neal with Senator Hatch, Josh Yurek with Senator Roberts, Pam Davidson with Senator Cassidy, Brent Palmer with Senator Mikulski, David Cohen with Senator Sanders, Jared Solomon with Senator Casey, Gohar Sedighi with Senator Franken, Juliana Hermann with Senator Bennet, Brenna Barber with Senator Whitehouse, Brian Moulton with Senator Baldwin, Mike DiNapoli with Senator Baldwin, Eamonn Collins with Senator Murphy, and Josh Delaney with Senator Warren. Much of the hard-working staff from the White House and Department of Education also provided great help in getting this conference agreement completed. From the White House, I would like to thank Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Domestic Policy Adviser Cecilia Munoz, James Kvaal, Roberto Rodriguez, Kate Mevis, Don Sisson, and Mario Cardona. From the U.S. Department of Education, I would like to thank Secretary Arne Duncan, Emma Vadehra, and Lloyd Horwich for their technical assistance. The Senate legislative counsel staff work long hours on the many drafts of this bill and the amendments we considered on the floor in July, so I would like to especially thank Amy Gaynor, Kristin Romero, and Margaret Bomba. We always rely on the experts at the Congressional Research Service to give us good information in a timely manner, so I extend my thanks to Becky Skinner, Jeff Kuenzi, Jody Feder, and Gail McCallion. On Senator McConnell's staff, I would like to thank Sharon Soderstrom, Don Stewart, Jen Kuskowski, Katelyn Conner, Erica Suares, John Abegg, Neil Chatergee, and Johnathan Burks. On the Senate floor staff, I would like to thank Laura Dove, Robert Duncan, Chris Tuck, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Megan Mercer, Tony Hanagan, Mike Smith, and Chloe Barz. On Senator Cornyn's staff, I would like to thank Monica Popp, Emily Kirlin, and John Chapuis. From the Republican Policy Committee, I would like to thank Dana Barbieri. Finally, I would like to thank some in the education community for their persistent help with this bill, including Mary Kusler with the National Education Association, Tor Cowan with the American Federation of Teachers, Chris Minnich, Peter Zamora Carissa Moffat Miller, and Jessah Walker with the Council of Chief State School Officers, Stephen Parker and David Quam with the National Governors Association, and Noelle Ellerson and Sasha Pudelski with the School Superintendents Association. Mr. President, as I said earlier--and I am speaking mainly to my colleagues on the Republican side now--Senator Murray's preference for a large early childhood program is not in the bill. My preference for a large program to give parents more choices of schools is not in the bill. We are not voting on that today. Today we are voting on one of two things: the status quo or the change. You are either voting yes to repeal the common core mandate or no to keep it. You are either voting yes to get rid of the waivers through which the U.S. Department of Education has been operating as a national school board for 80,000 schools in 42 States or a vote no is saying: I like the national school board. Your voting yes means the largest step toward local control of schools in 25 years or no means you are voting against the largest step toward local control in 25 years. A vote yes means you like the fact that this bill should produce less testing; no means you like the testing the way it is. Those are the choices. We are past the time when each of us has a chance to offer an amendment. We all offered our amendments. I have offered mine. Some of mine got 45 votes, and I needed 60 votes, so they are not in the bill, but the choice today is a choice to unleash a flood of excellence in student achievement across this country the way it should be--State by State, community by community, classroom by classroom. I urge my colleagues to vote yes. I yield back any time we have remaining. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the American people have a lot on their minds this week about things happening in our world and in our country, but today we turn our attention to something at home. The Senate and Congress--and I believe the President--by the end of the week will have a Christmas present for 50 million children and 3.4 million teachers in 100,000 public schools across this country, something they have been eagerly awaiting. Today the Senate should pass by a large margin our bill to fix No Child Left Behind. A lot has been said about how the bill repeals the common core mandate, how it reverses a trend toward a national school board that has gone on through the last two Presidential administrations, and how it is the biggest step toward local control in a quarter of a century for public schools. That is all true. The legislation specifically prohibits the U.S. Secretary of Education from specifying in any State that it must have the common core standards or any other academic standards--not just this Secretary but future Secretaries. It gets rid of the waivers the U.S. Department of Education has been using to act, in effect, as a national school board, causing Governors to have to come to Washington and play ``Mother May I'' if they want to evaluate teachers or fix low- performing schools or set their own academic standards. And it is true that it moves a great many decisions at home. It is the single biggest step toward local control of schools in 25 years. This morning, as we come to a vote, which we will do at 10:45, I would like to emphasize something else. I believe the passage of this legislation--and if it is signed later this week, as I believe it will be, by President Obama--will unleash a flood of innovation and excellence in student achievement across America, community by community and State by State. Why do I say that? Look at where the innovation has come from before. My own State, Tennessee, was the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well, creating a master teacher program in the 1980s. Florida came right behind. That didn't come from Washington, DC. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota created what we now call charter schools in the early 1990s. That didn't come from Washington. The Governors themselves met with President George H.W. Bush in 1989 to establish national education goals--not directed from Washington but with Governors working together, with the President involved in leading the way and providing the bully pulpit support. Then the Governors since that time have been setting higher standards, devising tests to see how well students were doing to reach those standards, creating their own State accountability systems, and finding more ways to evaluate teachers fairly. My own State has done pretty well without Washington's supervision. Starting with the master teacher program in the 1980s, then-Governor McWherter, in his time in the 1990s, helped Tennessee pioneer relating student achievement to teacher performance. Then Governor Bredesen, a Democratic Governor, realized that our standards were very low--we were kidding ourselves--so he, working with other Governors, pushed them higher. Our current Governor Bill Haslam has taken it even further, and our children are leading the country in student achievement gains. So the States themselves have been the source of innovation and excellence over the last 30 years. We have learned something else in the last 10 or 15 years: Too much Washington involvement causes a backlash. You can't have a civil conversation about common core in Tennessee or many other States. It is the No. 1 issue in Republican primaries, even in general elections, mainly because Washington got involved with it. Now Washington is out of it, and it is up to Tennessee and Washington and every State to decide for themselves what their academic standards ought to be. The same is true with teacher evaluation. I was in a 1\1/2\-year brawl with the National Education Association in 1983 and 1984 as Governor, when we paid teachers more for teaching well. It carried by one vote in our State senate. So when I came to Washington a few years ago, people said: Well, Senator Alexander is going to want every State to do that. They were absolutely wrong about that. The last thing we should do is tell States they must evaluate teachers and how to evaluate teachers. It is hard enough to do without somebody looking over your shoulder. Too much Washington involvement has actually made it harder--harder to have higher standards and harder to evaluate teachers. I believe we are changing that this week. I had dinner with a Democratic Senator last night who plans to vote for the bill. He said he would have given me 5-to-1 odds at the beginning of the year that we wouldn't be able to pass this bill. Why are we at the point where we are likely to get votes in the mid- eighties today in favor of the bill? No. 1, because we worked on it in a bipartisan way. And I have given credit many times to Senator Murray from the State of Washington for suggesting how we do that. I see Senator Mikulski from Maryland on the floor. She has been a force for that as well. Our committee worked in a bipartisan way, and so did the House of Representatives as we worked through the conference. The President and his staff members and Secretary Duncan have been professional and straightforward in dealing with us all year long, and I am grateful for that. We knew from the beginning, when we said to the President: Mr. President, we know we can't change the law; we can't fix No Child Left Behind unless we have your signature. We know that. He dealt with us in a straightforward way. Then we found a consensus. Once we found that consensus, it made a very difficult problem a lot easier. The consensus is this: We keep the important measurements of student achievement so that parents, teachers, and schools will know how schools, teachers, and parents are doing. There are 17 tests designed by the States, administered from the 3rd grade through the 12th grade, about 2 hours per test. That is not very many tests. Keep those, report the results, disaggregate the results, and then leave to classroom teachers, school boards, and States the decisions about what to do about the tests. That should result in better and fewer tests. That consensus underpins the success we have had. Six years ago, in December, we had a big disagreement in this Chamber. We passed the Affordable Care Act, with all the Democrats voting yes and all the Republicans voting no. The next day, the Republicans went out and started trying to repeal it, and we haven't stopped. That is what happens with that kind of debate. This is a different kind of debate. If the President signs this bill, as I believe he will, the next day, people aren't going to be trying to repeal it. Governors, school board members, and teachers are going to be able to implement it, and they will go to work doing it. They will be deciding what tests to give, what schools to fix and how to fix them, what the higher academic standards ought to be, and what kind of tests should be there. It will be their decision. They will be free to do it from the day the President signs this bill. It lasts only for 4 years until it is supposed to be reauthorized, but my guess is that this bill and the policies within it will set the standard for policy in elementary and secondary education from the Federal level for the next two decades. It is a compromise, but it is a very well-crafted piece of work. It is good. It is good policy. There are some things that are undone. Senator Murray has her list of things that couldn't get in the bill, and I have mine. I was glad to see us make more progress on charter schools. I have watched that go from the time I was Education Secretary in the early 1990s, when I wrote a letter to every school superintendent asking them to try at least one of those Minnesota start-from-scratch schools. I watched it go from there to today where over 5 percent of our children in public schools go to charter schools. That is a lot of kids--almost 3 million children--going to schools where teachers have more freedom and parents have more choices. What we haven't made as much progress on is giving low-income parents more choices of schools for their children so they have the same kind of opportunity that financially better off parents do. My Scholarship for Kids proposal got only 45 votes here. I thought it was a very good idea that would give States the option--not a mandate--to turn all their Federal education dollars into scholarships for low-income children. That would be $2,100 for each of those children, and it would follow them to the school their parents chose under the State's rules, not Washington's rules. That is not a part of this bill, but we can fight about that and discuss that another day, and I intend to try to do that. Today I think we celebrate the fact that we have come to a very good conclusion. We are sending to the President a bill I hope he will be comfortable with. While it does repeal the common core mandate and it does reverse the trend to a national school board and it is the biggest step toward local control in 25 years, what excites me about the bill is I believe it will unleash a flood of innovation and excellence in elementary and secondary education that will be a wonderful Christmas present for 50 million children in 100,000 public schools being taught by 3.4 million teachers. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 85 to 12, has sent a Christmas present to 50 million children across this country. First, it has to go down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where we hope President Obama will wrap a big red bow around it, sign it, and send it to the children and the 3.4 million teachers who are looking forward to it. This is a bill that is so important that the Nation's Governors gave it their first full endorsement of any piece of legislation in 20 years. It has the full support of the Chief State School Officers, it has the full support of the school administrators, and it has the support of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. This is very good policy, and the reason it is, is it is bipartisan, it is a consensus, and instead of arguing about it after the President signs it--which I hope he will--classroom teachers, school board members, Governors, community by community, State by State can go to work implementing it, and making their plans to make their own decisions about what kind of tests to give, how many to give, what the standards should be, how to fix failing schools, how to reward outstanding teachers. We have created an environment that I believe will unleash a flood of excellence in student achievement, State by State and community by community. I thank the Members of the Senate. I especially thank the, members of the Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee who have worked so well together--all 22 of them. I especially thank Senator Patty Murray of Washington for her leadership and her effectiveness in helping to get such a remarkable event. To take an issue this complex and difficult and have a vote of 85 to 12 proves that when the Senate puts its mind to it, it can do some very good work. We have done that today.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess today from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 8, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Opioid Abuse in America: Facing the Epidemic and Examining Solutions.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 8, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 8, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ensuring Competition Remains on Tap: The AB InBev/SABMiller merger and the State of Competition in the Beer Industry.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the conference agreement to replace No Child Left Behind, the Every Student Succeeds Act, takes unprecedented steps to rein in the Secretary of Education and put the power for education decisions back in the hands of parents and State and local officials. By passing this legislation, it clearly becomes Congress' intent that States be solely responsible for the development and implementation of, and decisions regarding, all aspects of their State accountability systems. This is an intentional and deliberate act to eliminate the ability of the Secretary of Education to use regulatory power or guidance to add new requirements or conditions to State systems that are outside of the specific language in statute. The legislation prevents the Secretary from influencing, forcing, or coercing a State to adopt specific standards in many ways, including the following: First, officers and employees of the Federal Government--including the Secretary of Education--are prohibited from conditioning the receipt of any funds, through grants, contracts, or agreements on the adoption of any academic standards, including Common Core. Second, States do not have to submit their standards to the Secretary for review or approval. Third, the Secretary is prohibited from exercising any direction or supervision over a State's academic standards. The Secretary is also prevented from using executive authority to create terms and conditions that should be done through the legislative process, including the following: First, the Secretary is prohibited from adding new requirements through regulations. Second, the Secretary is prohibited from adding new requirements as a condition of approval of a State plan. Third, the Secretary is prohibited from dictating what should happen in early education. Fourth, the Secretary is prohibited from creating new policies through redefining terms or phrases in the law. Furthermore, the legislation protects States' rights to control their education system by ensuring the Secretary is prohibited from: coercing a State to adopt any particular curriculum or program of instruction; prescribing the long-term goals or measurements of interim progress, or the weights of State-determined indicators, or the methodology for identifying low-performing schools, in the State's accountability system; requiring any specific assessments be used by a State; dictating any particular school support or improvement strategies or interventions; or requiring any measures of teacher, principal, or other school leader effectiveness. Section 1111(e) clearly states the Secretary may not add any requirements or criteria outside the scope of this act and further says the Secretary may not take any action that would ``be in excess of statutory authority given to the Secretary.'' This section goes on to lay out specific terms the Secretary cannot prescribe, sets clear limits on the guidance the Secretary may offer, and also clearly states that the Secretary is prohibited from defining terms that are inconsistent with or outside the scope of this Act. There are also provisions in titles I and VIII that ensure standards and curriculum are left to the discretion of States without Federal control or mandates, and the same is true for assessments. The legislation also clearly lays out congressional intent by including a sense of Congress that States and local educational agencies retain the right and responsibility of determining educational curriculum, programs of instruction, and assessments. The legislation makes it clear the Secretary is not to put any undue limits on the ability of States to determine their accountability systems, their standards, or what tests they give their students. The clear intent of this legislation restores responsibility for the authority over education decisions back to the States and severely limits the Secretary's ability to interfere in any way. Ensuring a limited role for the U.S. Secretary of Education was a critically important priority throughout the reauthorization process and this legislation meets that priority. For example, the Secretary may not limit the ability of States to determine how the measures of student performance are weighted within State accountability systems. The legislation does not authorize the Secretary to issue regulations that specify a specific weight or a range of weights that any indicator must fall within when States setting up their system. Any weights or ranges of weight of each indicator will be determined by the State. The Secretary also cannot prescribe school support or improvement strategies, any aspect of a State's teacher evaluation system, or the methodology used to differentiate schools in a State. Also, the Secretary may not create new policy and requirements by creatively defining terms in the law. Definitively, this new law reins in the Secretary and ensures it is State and local education officials making decisions about their schools. Under current law, the current Secretary and previous Education officials have exceeded their authority by placing conditions on waivers to States and local educational agencies outside the scope of the legislative language or congressional intent. This legislation prevents the Secretary from applying any new conditions on waivers or the State plans required in the law. The language clearly states the Secretary may not add any new conditions for the approval of waivers or State plans that are outside the scope of the law. This means if the law does not give the Secretary the authority to require something, then the Secretary may not unilaterally create an ability to do that through regulation, approval or disapproval of State plans, binding guidance, or any other means of enforcement. Finally, this legislation sets up a more inclusive and transparent negotiated rulemaking process, particularly for any regulations related to standards, assessments, or supplement, not supplant requirements in the law. All regulations, if any, issued on these items must adhere to agreements reached by negotiators in negotiated rulemaking. The Secretary may not ignore agreements reached. The legislation also requires an alternative process for regulations if consensus is not reached through negotiated rulemaking, including a review of the time, costs, and paperwork burden of any proposed regulations. Congress will also be given an opportunity to review any proposed regulations for 15 days prior to submission to the Federal Register. Additionally, the public will have 60 days to comment on any proposed regulations. The purpose of these new requirements is for the Department of Education to be more transparent in what burden new regulations will place on States, school districts, and schools. Additionally, by giving Congress and the public the opportunity to explicitly weigh in on proposed regulations, the intent is that the Department will listen to thoughts from people on the ground regarding how they will be impacted.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, this is a day for opportunity in the Senate. We have an opportunity today to reverse the trend of the last several years toward a national school board. We have an opportunity to make clear that in the future, the path to higher standards, better teaching, and real accountability will be through States, communities, and classrooms and not through Washington, DC. We have an opportunity to vote in favor of what the Wall Street Journal has called ``the largest devolution of Federal control to States in a quarter century.'' We have an opportunity to inaugurate a new era of innovation and excellence in student achievement by restoring responsibility to States and classroom teachers. Tennessee, after all, was the first State that paid teachers more for teaching well. Minnesota educators created the first charter schools. The real advances in higher standards and accountability and appropriate testing have come from classroom teachers and from Governors, not from Washington, DC, and I believe that is where those advances will come from in the future. We have an opportunity today to provide much needed stability and certainty to Federal education policy from some very important people who are counting on us: 50 million children, 3.4 million teachers, and 100,000 public schools. Newsweek magazine recently reminded us what we already know very well: No Child Left Behind is a law everybody wants fixed. Governors, teachers, superintendents, parents, Republicans, Democrats, and students all want the law fixed. There is a consensus about that and fortunately there is a consensus about how to fix it. That consensus is this: continue the law's important measurements of academic progress of students--disaggregate and report the results of those measurements--so teachers, parents, and the community can know what is going on in the schools but restore to States, school districts, classroom teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about those tests and about what to do about improving student achievement. In our Senate hearings, I suppose we heard more about over-testing than any other subject. I believe this new law will result in fewer and better tests because States and classroom teachers will be deciding what to do about the results of the tests. Building on the consensus I have just described is why the Senate-- our Senate education committee--passed our bill 22 to 0 and why it passed on the floor 81 to 17. That is why conferees from the Senate and the House were able to agree 38 to 1, and that is why last Thursday the House of Representatives approved the conference report 359 to 64. That is why the National Governors Association gave our conference report its first full endorsement that the NGA has given to any legislation in nearly 20 years. That is why the Chief State School Officers, the school superintendents, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers all have supported our result. This consensus will end the waivers through which the U.S. Department of Education has become in effect a national school board for more than 80,000 schools in 42 States. Governors have been forced to come to Washington, DC, and play ``Mother, May I'' in order for a State to put in a plan to evaluate teachers, for example, or to help a low- performing school. Our consensus will end the Federal common core mandate. It explicitly prohibits Washington from mandating or even incentivizing common core or any other specific academic standards. That is exclusively the responsibility of the State. It moves decisions about whether schools, teachers, and students are succeeding or failing out of Washington, DC, and back to States and communities and classroom teachers where those decisions belong. I am grateful to Senator Murray, who is here today, and Representatives Kline and Scott, and to all of the members of our Senate education committee, for the leadership they have shown and the bipartisan way in which they have worked on this legislation. I am grateful to both the Democratic and Republican staffs in the Senate and in the House for their ingenuity and hard work. Fixing No Child Left Behind has not been easy. Everyone is an expert on education. This has been a lot like being in a football stadium with 100,000 fans, all of whom know exactly which play to call and usually each one of them says so. Some Republicans would like even more local control of schools than our consensus provides, and I am one of them, but my Scholarship for Kids proposal, which would have given States the option to allow Federal dollars to follow children to the school their parents choose, only received 45 votes in the Senate. It needed 60. So I have decided, as a President named Reagan once advised, that I will take 80 percent of what I want and fight for the other 20 percent on another day. Besides, if I were to vote no, I would be voting to leave in place the common core mandate--and I would be voting to leave in place the waivers that permit the U.S. Department of Education to act as a national school board for 80,000 students and 42 states--and I would be voting against the largest step toward locally-controlled schools in 25 years. Let me repeat that. Voting no today is voting to leave in place the common core mandate and the national school board and voting against the largest step toward local control of schools in 25 years. I say to my friends, especially on the Republican side, many of whom, as I do, would like more local control: That is not the choice. The choice is whether we want to leave in place common core, the national school board, and the largest step toward local control in 25 years. I don't want to do that. This law expired 8 years ago. It has become unworkable. If it were strictly applied, it would label nearly every school in America a failing school. So States, teachers, and parents have been waiting 8 years for us to reauthorize this law. If this were homework, they would give Congress an F for being tardy, but I hope they will give us a good grade for the result we have today. It is a great privilege to serve in the U.S. Senate, but there is no need for us to have that privilege if all we do is announce our different opinions or vote no if we don't get 100 percent of our way. We can do that at home or on the radio or in the newspaper or on a street corner. As U.S. Senators, after we have had our say, our job is to get a principled result. Today we have that opportunity. I hope today will demonstrate that we understand the privilege we have as Senators and show that we cherish our children by building upon this consensus and vote yes to fix the law that everybody wants fixed and yes for the consensus that restores responsibility for our schools to States, communities, and classroom teachers. Before Senator Murray speaks, I would like to do two things, briefly. The first vote--the vote we are having today at 11:30--is a vote about whether to cut off debate on fixing No Child Left Behind. I hope no Senator thinks we have not had enough debate. We have been at this for 7 years. We failed in the last two Congresses. We have been working in our committee since January. We have had innumerable hearings, more than 50 amendments in committee, more than 70 amendments were dealt with on the floor, a dozen or so amendments in the conference report. Every Senator has had this in his or her office since last Monday--at least for a week. So the question today at 11:30 is, Is it time to cut off debate and move to a final vote? I hope every Senator will vote yes. Finally, I mentioned Senator Murray and her role in this, which has been indispensable in terms of our ability to come to a result. I would like to extend my deep thanks and appreciation to her staff and our staff, the committee staff, that worked on fixing No Child Left Behind. Many of them have been working on this effort for nearly 5 years. They have been ingenious. They have worked hard. They have been understanding, they have been tireless, and they have been indispensable in creating this important bipartisan, bicameral bill. That includes the staffs of Representative Kline and Representative Scott in the House On Senator Murray's exceptional staff I would like to thank especially Evan Schatz, Sarah Bolton, Amanda Beaumont, John Righter, Jake Cornett, Leanne Hotek, Allie Kimmel, and Aissa Canchola. All of those people were very important. For my hard-working and dedicated staff, I would especially like to thank our staff director, David Cleary, Peter Oppenheim, Lindsay Fryer, Bill Knudsen, Jordan Hynes, Hillary Knudson, Jake Baker, Lindsey Seidman, Allison Martin, Bobby McMillan, Jim Jeffries, Liz Wolgemuth, Margaret Atkinson, and Taylor Haulsee. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I have said many times but I would like to say again that at the beginning of this discussion, when the Senator from Washington and I talked about how we had been stuck for two Congresses on this, I started in one direction and she suggested a different direction. As it turned out, she gave me good advice. I took it, and as a result, we have a result. So I thank her for that, and I look forward to working with her on other important issues in the same way. The Senator from Georgia would like to speak before we vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Georgia, and I salute him. The Senator from Georgia is a former chairman of the Georgia State Board of Education. His experience there, his work with Senator Murray on early childhood education, and his insistence on an amendment that gives States the right to allow parents to opt out of federally required tests all were major contributions to this legislation. I think it is fair to say that we could not have fixed No Child Left Behind without Johnny Isakson's experience and leadership, and I am deeply grateful to him for that. We yield back all time on our side.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, on behalf of the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the vote on adoption of the conference report to accompany S. 1177 occur at 10:45 a.m., on Wednesday, December 9, which is tomorrow.