States should have the power to fix the No Child Left Behind education bill, according to Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander.

"Not only is there consensus about the need to fix No Child Left Behind, but there's also remarkable consensus about how to fix it," Alexander said in the GOP's weekly address. "That consensus is this: Continue the law's important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to states, school districts, classroom teachers and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement."

Currently, the bill puts forth a complicated set of educational standards which cause "anxiety and confusion" in school systems across the nation, according to Alexander. He says his fellow lawmakers have not done anything to fix and reform it.

"No Child Left Behind expired in 2007 but Congress has been unable to agree on how to reauthorize it," Alexander, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, argued. "As a result, the law's original requirements have stayed in place and gradually become unworkable."

Alexander compared No Child Left Behind to the very unpopular Common Core academic standards, and said that in both cases states are better at making education decisions than the federal government.