The Washington Post – Lyndsey Layton
“As the Senate education panel attempts to rewrite the nation’s main federal education law, the panel’s top Democrat has convinced the Republican chairman to start over and craft what both sides say will be a bipartisan bill. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the panel’s chairman, had released a GOP draft bill and held two hearings and a roundtable discussion on various aspects of the complex legislation, which governs the way the federal government interacts with the nation’s 100,000 K-12 public schools…In this Congress, both Alexander and the ranking Democrat on the panel, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, say they are determined to find common ground and draft a new law that will get bipartisan support…But in recent days, aides to Murray have suggested that Alexander was “jamming” his GOP bill through the committee…That led to a lengthy conversation Thursday night between Alexander and Murray, aides on both sides said. The talk ended in agreement that the pair would ditch Alexander’s GOP proposal and start over to create a bipartisan bill that they would bring to the rest of the Senate committee.”(more)