Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask if the Democratic leader would modify his request to give me 12 minutes and Senator Hatch 10 minutes following Senators Boxer, Wyden, and Murphy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Just before the vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the American Enterprise Institute be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet during the session of the Senate on July 29, 2015, at 9 a.m., in room SH-430 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Combating Campus Sexual Assault.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Jake Baker of the committee staff on (202) 224-8484.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Corker for his eloquent and obviously heartfelt comments. He mentioned the word that we have heard most often since last Thursday, when he and I first got word of this tragedy, and the word is ``heartbroken.'' We are heartbroken for the lives that were lost, heartbroken for the families that remain, and heartbroken for the community of Chattanooga. We can see the deep emotion that Senator Corker has expressed. As a resident and former mayor of Chattanooga, that community is very special to him. On Friday at 5:30 p.m., in Mount Olivet Baptist Church, there was a memorial service that nearly 1,000 people attended. Senator Corker, our Governor, the police chief, and others spoke. I know most people in the country know about what happened that day. Most of them would have liked to have been there to do what they could in a time such as this. You never know quite what to say. Sometimes all you can do is just be there. This is especially hard because these were young men--young men in the service of our country, young men whose lives were filled with happiness, young men who had the expectation of a long life for themselves, young men who were filled with duty and service. They were living in a strong community. Faith and the sense of helping one another is strong Chattanooga faith. Chattanooga is a place of good neighbors. Chattanooga was recently named the best midsize city in America. Everything in Chattanooga seemed to be going in the right direction, and then this happened. So it is especially heartbreaking in the community of Chattanooga. On Friday, I thought--while trying to think about what words I could add to the words that were being said--about the time in 1985 when 289 members of the 101st Airborne Division lost their lives in a plane crash in Newfoundland, and President Reagan came to Fort Campbell to meet with the families to talk about it. I was Governor then, and I drove up to hear what he had to say. He spoke of those men and women--as these five were--as peacekeepers. They were there to protect lives, protect the peace, and to act as a force for stability and trust for our country. President Reagan said of those 289 men and women, which can be equally said of these five men, that their work was the perfect expression of the best of the Judeo-Christian tradition. They were the ones of whom Christ spoke when he said: ``Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.'' President Reagan said of the 289 who lost their lives 30 years ago what could be said of these five this week and what a poet said of soldiers in another war: They will never grow old; they will always be young. And we know one thing with every bit of our thinking: They are now in the arms of God. Chattanoogans said last Friday the words ``Chattanooga strong,'' and they were repeated by Senator Corker, the Governor, and most of the members of the community. People were standing up and supporting each other and the families who had been heartbroken by the loss of their loved ones. I am enormously impressed with the people of Chattanooga and their current leaders: the mayor, the Governor, and their Senator, who is also their former mayor. I believe Chattanooga will be strong. I think it is important, as we reflect and grieve here in the Senate with Chattanooga--not just with the families and the people who knew the five who passed--that we not only honor the five, but that we also honor the city and its response to this terrible tragedy. I pledge to continue to work with Senator Corker to do all that I can to help those five families and help create an environment that can keep Chattanooga strong. I thank the Presiding Officer, and yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank Senator Whitehouse for his work on this amendment. The thinking behind the Innovation Schools Demonstration Authority is consistent with the approach we have taken throughout the Every Child Achieves Act: returning more decisionmaking authority back to our 100,000 public schools and promoting greater flexibility in achieving high standards. This pilot program would allow for the creation of autonomous schools that would operate under the same accountability standards as other schools in the school district; however, these innovation schools would be granted flexibility to increase student achievement in innovative ways to best serve the needs of their students. Through increased autonomy and flexibility, innovation schools may see some of the same demonstrated successes as charter schools.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reviewing HealthCare.gov Controls.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Corruption, Global Magnitsky, and Modern Slavery--Review of Human Rights Around the World.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 11 a.m., in room SD-216 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

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 July 16, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Wildlife Poaching.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources' Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 2:45 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Reviewing the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs' Role in the Regulatory Process.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SR-328A of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Legislative Hearing to Review Pending Forest Service and Forestry Related Bills.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 16, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her comments. At 10:45 a.m., we will begin voting. We have six amendments--five or six that we expect to vote on, and then at 1:45 p.m. we will have passage of the bill or cloture and final passage of the bill. So we will finish our bill fixing No Child Left Behind today. Of course, in the U.S. Senate nothing is done until it is done, so I don't want to anticipate that--but I think it is fair to make a few comments about the bill at this point, anticipating we will have a successful conclusion this afternoon. If we are able to pass a bill fixing No Child Left Behind this afternoon, it will be a remarkable accomplishment for a U.S. Senate filled with 100 experts on education. I said earlier this week that dealing with a piece of legislation about elementary and secondary education is a little bit like going to a football game at the University of Tennessee, where there are 100,000 people in the stands and every one of them is an expert on football, and they know exactly what the next play is to call. Consensus among experts is not easy, but consensus is necessary in the U.S. Senate if we are going to deal even with such a complex problem as this, and that is exactly what we have achieved. As Senator Murray said, we found a consensus first about the urgent need to fix No Child Left Behind, 7 years overdue. That is our collective thought in the U.S. Congress. We tried twice the last two Congresses, but we fell apart over partisan differences. I will give Senator Murray credit for coming up with the idea of how we began this process earlier this year, and that was for the two of us, consulting with our committee members and other Senators, to produce a draft that would be a starting point for our committee, and that worked well. We considered nearly 60 amendments in committee, adopted 27, I believe, and the committee reported unanimously to this body a bill to fix No Child Left Behind. That gave us a very good head start because members of our committee represent some of our most liberal Members and some of our most conservative Members. The fact that we could agree on how to take that step made a big difference, and that is one reason we will succeed this afternoon in passing the bill. So we found a consensus not only on the urgent need to fix No Child Left Behind but on how to fix No Child Left Behind, and the consensus is this: continue the law's important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to States, school districts, classrooms, teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement. That theme runs through this bill. This change, in my opinion, should produce fewer tests and more appropriate ways to measure students' achievement. It is the most effective way to advance higher State standards, better teaching, and real accountability. We have had a lot of talk about accountability during this debate, as we should have, and the Presiding Officer, as I was, having been a Governor, watched over the last 15 years how States have become better prepared in dealing with student achievement, how they worked together to create higher standards State by State, worked together to create better assessments, tests State by State, and now work together to create better accountability State by State. This bill is a recognition of that preparation by the States and recognition also as the New York Principal of the Year said in a letter to us, that people closest to the children cherish their children, and we should not assume that just because we have flown to Washington, DC, for the week that suddenly we are so much wiser about what to do about children in 100,000 public schools and cherish the children more than the classroom teachers and the parents and the school board members and the community and the legislators and the Governors who are closer to them than we are. The next step, if we are successful this afternoon, is to go to a conference with the House. I have had numerous discussions with Chairman Kline at the House of Representatives. We have been on parallel paths. We know better than to try to make our institutions do exactly the same thing--that defies human nature--but we can communicate and stay in touch with each other, and our bills are not that different. The committee members are familiar with the bill. There are some important differences, and we will have to work those out, but our goal, if we succeed today, is to take the bill passed by the House, put it together with the Senate bill, produce a conference report, and send it to the desk of President Obama in a form he will be comfortable signing. I believe the President also sees the need to fix No Child Left Behind. He knows there is confusion and anxiety in most of our 100,000 public schools that need to be settled, and we hope we have come up with a version of the bill that while it wouldn't be the bill he would write if only he were writing it--and as Senator Murray said, it is not the bill she would write if only she were writing it, and it certainly would not be the bill I would write if only I were writing it, but we had a consensus we needed to come to. Why do we need a consensus? Because that is how to govern in a complex society. I first came to the Senate at a young age in the late sixties, and I watched Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader, and President Johnson, the Democratic President, work together to produce the civil rights legislation. That was more difficult than this--although this has been pretty difficult. It took 68 votes to get cloture at that time, and they did that. It was only because they had a consensus. Senator Russell from Georgia, who had opposed the civil rights bill, went home to Georgia the next day and said: It is the law of the land. We need to support it. The way to govern a complex country is through consensus, and the agency of our government that is the only agent for encouraging and achieving consensus is the U.S. Senate. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for creating an environment where we could do that. Senator McConnell has done that by putting the bill on the floor, giving us enough time to have amendments, and having a policy of encouraging amendments so Senators on both sides can have their say, both on the committee and on the floor. There have been more Democratic amendments considered and adopted than Republican amendments, and that is appropriate. Senator Cornyn, Senator Thune, Senator Barrasso on this side of the aisle have been very helpful. I have several times thanked the Democratic leader Senator Reid. He has helped to create an environment that permitted this to move in an orderly fashion. We basically conducted the end of the consideration of this bill by unanimous consent. Enough Senators had a chance to have their say that they agreed by unanimous consent that we can consider these amendments and only these amendments in a certain way, with a certain amount of time, and go all the way through to the end. That is a very good way to operate the Senate, and the Democratic leader made that possible, first by allowing the bill to come to the floor without a cloture vote and by working with us as we went through it, and Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin, who along with Senator Murray are part of the Democratic leadership, have done the same. Senator Vitter, Senator Lee, Senator Toomey, and Senator Burr have all stepped back a little bit on things they would like to do--so did Senator Franken and so did Senator Casey on that side of the aisle. In other words, a number of Senators exercised restraint to permit us to work toward a result. In a body that operates by unanimous consent, that is absolutely essential. So this has been a good process. We have six more amendments this morning, and we look forward to debating those and acting on them. At 1:45, hopefully, we will have a big vote in favor of fixing No Child Left Behind, reflecting the consensus that will keep the important measurements of student achievement, but we will turn back and restore to the State and local governments the responsibility for what to do about the results of those tests. That is the consensus in this bill that survived very well through the committee process and through the amendments so far, and I expect it to survive through the rest of the day. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, for the information of Senators, this is the last vote before lunch. We will have two votes beginning at 1:45 p.m., a cloture vote and the vote on final passage. Amendment No. 2242

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Corker, and I be permitted to engage in a short colloquy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Is it time to vote? Cloture Motion

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an extra minute if I need it.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Murray suggested we work on this in a bipartisan way. I took her advice. It was good advice. This is the result. We have had 100 amendments in committee and on the floor. We have had excellent process. I thank the majority leader. I thank Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, for creating an environment to do that. Now, let me say this about the vote we are about to have. This is a law that everybody wants fixed. We have a consensus on that. We have a consensus on how to fix it: keep the important measurements of academic achievement and turn the rest of it over to the States, to classroom teachers, and others who are closest to the children. That is what the Governors, that is what the superintendents, that is what the teachers organizations have said to us. They want us to fix it. They support the way we are proposing to fix it. Now, in the last few years, we have created in this country, in effect, a national school board. It has made it harder to have better teaching, harder to set higher standards, harder to have real accountability in the States. So we changed that. We reversed the trend toward the national school board. We end the common core mandate. We end the waivers that the U.S. Department of Education is using to run public schools. We end DC evaluating teachers. We end adequate yearly progress. Some are saying vote no because you should go further. Well, we had a chance to go further. We voted for the Daines amendment, the Scott amendment, and the Alexander amendment. That would have gotten us 90 percent of what we wanted. We got about 45 votes, so we didn't get anything. This gets us about 80 percent of what we want. A President named Reagan used to say: If you got 80 percent of what you wanted, you might take it and fight for the rest on another day. I am recommending we follow this advice. If we vote no today, that means we leave the Common Core mandate right where it is. That means the waivers are still running your schools. That means adequate yearly progress is determined from Washington, DC, not in your hometown, and that means Washington, DC, is evaluating your teachers. Everybody wants this law fixed. If you vote no, we fix nothing. We fix nothing. So no means we haven't fixed anything. So vote yes. Do what the Governors, do what the superintendents, do what the teachers say we ought to do. They all agree on that. This is the most important step in that direction we have had in 25 years. Let's not miss the opportunity. Vote to restore to the people closest to the children the responsibility for their education. Vote yes for local control of public schools. The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read the third time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. This is the report card. The Federal Government is saying: We will give you $23 billion, and all we are asking in return is that you, State, write a test; that you, State, figure out what the accountability system is and you report it to the parents and the public. That would mean a third grader, for example, would take two tests a year. Each test would be about 2 hours. So it is a State test, a State assessment. In our Alexander-Murray bipartisan bill, we keep what works in No Child Left Behind, which is the report card, but we get rid of what does not work, and we give back to States responsibility for determining student achievement. This is the consensus that supports this bill. Keeping the important measure of student achievement is essential to maintaining that consensus. So if you want to get rid of the Common Core mandate, get rid of the waivers for 42 States, reverse the trend to a national school board, vote no and keep the requirement for important measures of student achievement, which are State tests.

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