by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
November 10, 2025
Even with the federal government shut down, numerous persons are fascinated by the right way to reimagine federal schooling analysis. Public feedback on the right way to reform the Institute of Schooling Sciences (IES), the Schooling Division’s analysis and statistics arm, have been due on Oct. 15. A complete of 434 ideas have been submitted, however nobody can learn them as a result of the division isn’t allowed to submit them publicly till the federal government reopens. (We all know the quantity as a result of the remark entry web page has an automated counter.)
A fancy numbers sport
There’s broad settlement throughout the political spectrum that federal schooling statistics are important. Even many critics of the Division of Schooling need its information assortment efforts to outlive — simply elsewhere. Some have prompt transferring the Nationwide Middle for Schooling Statistics (NCES) to a different company, such because the Commerce Division, the place the U.S. Census Bureau is housed.
However Diane Cheng, vice chairman of coverage on the Institute for Larger Schooling Coverage, a nonprofit group that advocates for growing school entry and enhancing commencement charges, warns that shifting NCES dangers the standard and usefulness of upper schooling information. Any transfer must be executed fastidiously, planning for future interagency coordination, she mentioned.
“Most of the federal information collections mix information from totally different sources inside ED,” Cheng mentioned, referring to the Schooling Division. “It has labored nicely to have everybody throughout the similar company.”
Associated: Our free weekly publication alerts you to what analysis says about colleges and school rooms.
She factors to the Faculty Scorecard, the web site that lets households evaluate schools by value, scholar mortgage debt, commencement charges, and post-college earnings. It merges a number of information sources, together with the Built-in Postsecondary Schooling Knowledge System (IPEDS), run by NCES, and the Nationwide Scholar Mortgage Knowledge System, housed within the Workplace of Federal Scholar Assist. A number of different increased ed information collections on scholar help and college students’ pathways via school additionally merge information collected on the statistical unit with scholar help figures. Splitting these throughout totally different businesses may make such collaboration far harder.
“If these information are cut up throughout a number of federal businesses,” Cheng mentioned, “there would doubtless be extra bureaucratic hurdles required to mix the info.”
Info sharing throughout federal businesses is notoriously cumbersome, the very downside that led to the creation of the Division of Homeland Safety after 9/11.
Hiring and $4.5 million in recent analysis grants
Even because the Trump administration publicly insists it intends to shutter the Division of Schooling, it’s quietly rebuilding small components of it behind the scenes.
In September, the division posted eight new jobs to switch fired employees who oversaw the Nationwide Evaluation of Academic Progress (NAEP), the biennial check of American college students’ achievement. In November, it marketed 4 extra openings for statisticians contained in the Federal Scholar Assist Workplace. Nonetheless, nothing is predicted to be fast or easy. The federal government shutdown stalled hiring for the NAEP jobs, and now a brand new Trump administration directive to type hiring committees by Nov. 17 to approve and fill open positions could additional delay these hires.
On the similar time, the demolition continues. Lower than two weeks after the Oct. 1 authorities shutdown, 466 further Schooling Division staff have been terminated — on prime of the roughly 2,000 misplaced since March 2025 via firings and voluntary departures. (The division employed about 4,000 initially of the Trump administration.) A federal choose briefly blocked these newest layoffs on Oct. 15.
Associated: Schooling Division takes a preliminary step towards revamping its analysis and statistics arm
There are additionally different small new indicators of life. On Sept. 30 — simply earlier than the shutdown — the division quietly awarded 9 new analysis and growth grants totaling $4.5 million. The grants, listed on the division’s web site, are a part of a brand new initiative referred to as, “From Seedlings to Scale Grants Program” (S2S), launched by the Biden administration in August 2024 to check whether or not the Protection Division’s DARPA-style innovation mannequin may work in schooling. DARPA, the Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company, invests in new applied sciences for nationwide safety. Its most celebrated mission grew to become the premise for the web.
Every new mission, largely centered on AI-driven personalised studying, obtained $500,000 to supply early proof of effectiveness. Recipients embody universities, analysis organizations and ed tech companies. Initiatives that present promise may very well be eligible for future funding to scale up with extra college students.
In response to an individual aware of this system who spoke on background, the 9 tasks had been chosen earlier than President Donald Trump took workplace, however the formal awards have been delayed amid the division’s upheaval. The Institute of Schooling Sciences — which misplaced roughly 90 p.c of its employees — was one of many hardest hit divisions.
Granted, $4.5 million is a rounding error in contrast with IES’s official annual finances of $800 million. Nonetheless, these are believed to be the primary new federal schooling analysis grants of the Trump period and a faint sign that Washington will not be abandoning schooling innovation altogether.
Contact employees author Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Sign, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story about dangers to federal schooling information was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group centered on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Proof Factors and different Hechinger newsletters.
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