WASHINGTON (AP) — The good intentions of No Child Left Behind have not yielded good policy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate education panel said Tuesday as lawmakers began to rewrite the sweeping legislation that governs all schools that receive federal tax dollars.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, opened hearings on the 2001 education law by promising to scrap unworkable parts of that education law and give states more authority to decide how to teach students and to identify failing schools. His Republican counterpart, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was equally as critical of No Child Left Behind but said Democrats’ suggested replacement was little more than an effort to turn the U.S. Department of Education into a “national school board.”