Sen. Lamar Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray have announced that they’ve reached a compromise on reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. When a moderate Republican and a not-so-moderate Democrat cooperate on legislation, there’s reason to be nervous, but in this case there may be a silver lining among the clouds.

We all know that Congress has some big ticket items on its agenda for next year - repealing ObamaCare, balancing the budget, reining the president’s executive authority, but receiving less attention than perhaps they should are a number of smaller regulatory battles in which the new Republican majority could make a real difference.

Having already saddled college students with mountains of debt and ensuring that they will be unable to find jobs when they finally do graduate, the Obama administration has turned its attention towards the pre-kindergarten crowd. In his FY 2015 budget the president requested $750 million to expand the federal government’s role in preschool provision for the nation’s youngsters. This effort is right in line with what Democratic Senators have been trying to accomplish through legislation.