Sen. Lamar Alexander hopes the Senate will soon offer a new national education bill that favors states' rights.
The Republican senator from Tennessee — and former governor and ex-U.S. education secretary — is managing the Senate's rewrite this week of the No Child Left Behind Act to give states more power over their public schools.
Alexander heads the Senate's Education Committee and has been working on the rewrite for seven years.
The committee has sent the bill to the full Senate with a unanimous vote.
The 75-year-old Alexander says he got a little emotional when the bill passed the committee, with the assent of some of the Senate's most liberal and conservative members.
The legislation is a long way from becoming law, with an uncertain future in the House.
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