The Education Department is moving toward revamping its research and statistics department
Bidman said the Trump administration “absolutely” intends to retain its role in educational research, even if it tries to shut down the department. The closure will require Congressional approval, which has not yet happened. Meanwhile, Bidman said the department is looking across governments across the country to “the most suitable place” for its research and statistical activities.
Other IES activities seem to be resuming, too. In June, the department disclosed in a legal application that the document had or planned to resume 20 of the 101 termination contracts. The standard restart activity includes 10 regional education laboratories, working with school districts and states to generate and apply evidence. It is unclear how to restart all 20 contracts to hold the competitive bidding process and oversee them without federal employees.
In early September, the department released eight new tasks to help manage the National Education Progress Assessment (NAEP), also known as the U.S. transcript. These positions will be part of the National Center for Education Statistics IES Statistics Bureau. Most of the work of developing and managing tests is handled by external suppliers, but requires federal employees to grant and oversee these contracts. Following the massive shooting in March, the board staff responsible for NAEP has been loaned to the education department to ensure the 2026 NAEP tests are scheduled.
IES only has one small employee. Some education statistics have been lost since Trump took office, including the first release of higher education data on September 23. But the data is published late and incomplete.
Since March, it has been believed that no new grants have been made for educational research since March, but demands are not feared of retaliation and are determined, according to researchers familiar with the federal grant development process. A big obstacle is the cancellation of the contract for peer review of research recommendations and therefore the inability to properly review new ideas. The remaining employees are trying to make annual spending for older years of research that have not yet been cancelled.
With all these changes, it is difficult to find out the status of federally funded educational research. A potential source of clarity is a new project initiated by two researchers at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University. Rob Olsen and Betsy Wolf were IES researchers until March, and he had been tracking the cancellation and keeping records of the results of the study targeting decision makers.
If successful, it will be a much-needed light of chaos.
Contact the worker Jill Barshay At 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 about signal or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
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