Senate

McConnell turns Senate to No Child Left Behind overhaul

by Jordain Carney - 12/03/15 10:49 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is teeing up the Senate to turn to an overhaul of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, bringing the rewrite one step closer to President Obama’s desk.

The Republican leader Thursday night filed cloture on the House-Senate compromise legislation, which passed the House by a 359-64 majority earlier this week. The move tees up a procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday, paving the way for a vote on final passage next week.

{mosads}The bill, which comes eight years after the original law expired, reduces the federal government’s role in the public education system by transferring more decision-making authority back to state and local governments.

Citing the large vote margin in the House, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said, “I expected the same result next week so we can finally send a bill to the president’s desk to fix this broken law.”

The Senate passed its version of the No Child Left Behind fix, referred to as the Every Child Achieves Act, by an 81-17 margin earlier this year.

At the time, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), who are all Republican presidential candidates, voted against the legislation.