“If this data is scattered across multiple federal agencies,” Cheng said, “there may be more bureaucratic hurdles to integrating this data.”
Information sharing among federal agencies is notoriously troublesome, and it was this problem that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.
Recruitment and $4.5 million in new research funding
While the Trump administration has publicly insisted it intends to close the Department of Education, it is quietly rebuilding small parts of it behind the scenes.
In September, the department posted eight new positions to replace laid-off employees who oversee the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the biennial test of U.S. student achievement. In November, it filled four more statistician vacancies within the Office of Federal Student Aid. Still, nothing will be quick or smooth. The government shutdown has stalled hiring for NAEP positions, and now a new Trump administration directive requiring the formation of hiring committees to approve and fill open positions by Nov. 17 could further delay those hirings.
Meanwhile, demolition work continues. Less than two weeks after the government shutdown on Oct. 1, 466 Department of Education employees were laid off, in addition to the approximately 2,000 Department of Education employees lost since March 2025 through layoffs and voluntary separations. (At the start of the Trump administration, the department employed about 4,000 people.) A federal judge temporarily blocked the latest layoffs on Oct. 15.
There were other small signs of new life. On September 30, just before the government shutdown, the department quietly awarded nine new R&D grants totaling $4.5 million. The grants listed on the Department of Defense website are part of a new program called the Seedling to Scale Grants Program (S2S) launched by the Biden administration in August 2024 to test whether the Department of Defense’s DARPA-style innovation model can work in education. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) invests in new technologies for national security. Its best-known projects became the foundation of the Internet.
Each new project focused on AI-powered personalized learning received $500,000 in funding to provide early evidence of effectiveness. Recipients include universities, research institutions and education technology companies. Projects that show promise may be eligible for future funding to expand to attract more students.
The nine projects were selected before President Donald Trump took office, but the formal awards were delayed due to turmoil in the sector, according to a person familiar with the program. One of the worst-affected departments was the Institute of Educational Sciences, which lost about 90% of its staff.
Admittedly, there is a rounding error of $4.5 million compared to IES’ official annual budget of $800 million. Still, these are considered the first new federal education research grants of the Trump era and a weak signal that Washington may not give up entirely on education innovation.
This story is about Risks to federal education data is made of Heckinger Reportis a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. register proof point and others Heckinger Communications.
