Inefficiency Multiplied: What Happens When Research and Data are Halted at U.S. Dept. of Ed

The U.S. Department of Education canceled at least $881 million in contracts in its research division this week, halting research underway around the country on what helps students achieve success in school. Contractors received emails with orders to terminate their work immediately, before any final results of research studies could be analyzed and published. The announcement was not made by the education department. It was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the Department of Government Efficiency.

The termination of contracts may be the first of other cuts to come as the Trump Administration has been hinting that it wants to try to dismantle parts of the U.S. Department of Education without seeking Congressional action as required by law. Also of concern is what will happen to the collection of data on students, teachers, and schools, all of which is managed by the National Center of Education Statistics, which is powered by many of the contractors terminated on Monday. Much of that data is required to be collected under federal education laws.

While agencies like the U.S. Department of Education can surely benefit from reform, there are smarter ways to enact reforms that do not waste public dollars and erase decades of work by national data centers and research programs. To understand the impact of this week’s mass termination and the subsequent shutdown of the U.S. Department of Education’s key tasks, let’s take a look at how research is supported and what kinds of K-12 data are collected via the department (or were supported and collected, before the contracts were canceled):

Research on What Works

The department funds research on education through several programs, but one of its most significant channels—and the one most focused on rigorous scientific studies—is the Institute of Education Sciences. The IES, which was formed in 2002 as part of the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), spends less than one percent of the department’s budget (and the department itself represents just 1 percent of the overall 2025 federal budget). Yet it has played a critical role in elevating and funding scientific studies to examine why, when, and under what conditions American students are able to perform well in school. The institute also evaluates which programs funded by the government may not be working well and need to be overhauled.

IES runs four national centers (see the graphic below). The National Center for Education Research funds studies that use gold-standard scientific methods, such as randomized controlled trials. These methods can help eliminate bias in the design of a study, ensuring that it is not rigged. When subjects and classrooms are chosen randomly, assigned to particular teaching strategies or interventions, and then compared to a control group, it is more likely that positive or negative effects can be attributed to that particular intervention, instead of to the fact that an overachieving group may have self-selected to be studied or an underachieving group may have been chosen to make numbers look good.

NCER provides grants to researchers around the country doing this type of rigorous scientific work. So far, the stoppage of work announced on Monday appears to be limited to contracts and has not yet affected NCER grants. But it remains to be seen if forthcoming layoffs at the department and other efforts to rearrange or cut the department’s subprograms will affect these grantees.

IES makes its research available free to anyone online through the What Works Clearinghouse, which is a searchable database categorized by tiers corresponding to various levels of rigor in studies it has funded. It is not clear yet whether this clearinghouse and its data will be maintained under the Trump Administration, but some contractors who were terminated Monday were part of the workforce keeping this resource going.

The What Works Clearinghouse also provides practice guides for teachers, explanations of new teaching practices at different grade levels and with different types of learners, such as how to help fourth and eighth grade students who struggle with reading and how to improve math instruction for elementary school students. And it provides videos showing teachers in real classrooms using new methods with students of various ages. (This YouTube video explains its resources.) This professional development is free to all.

Studying how children learn cannot be done overnight; these studies often require months to set up, as it takes time to recruit school districts and teachers to participate, figure out processes for randomizing groups of students or schools, provide trainings to data collectors, and provide materials and mobile technologies (such as tablets or laptops) to test new methods.

Shutting down studies mid-stream wastes the public dollars invested in these projects, with countless data lost. In some cases, students and teachers are directly affected, such as when researchers have to pull technology out of classrooms and students are suddenly no longer able to keep going with the math exercises that were part of the studies. Already, EdTrust, the American Education Research Association, the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, Alliance for Learning Innovation, Data Quality Campaign, Digital Promise, InnovateEDU, Knowledge Alliance, and Results for America have issued various joint statements condemning the sudden cancellations.

Shutting down studies mid-stream wastes the public dollars invested in these projects, with countless data lost.

“The money that has been invested in research, data, and evaluations that are nearing completion is now getting the taxpayers no return on their investment,” Dana Tofig, a spokesperson for the American Institutes for Research, told Politico. “If the point of this exercise is to make sure taxpayer dollars are not wasted and are used well, the evaluation and data work that has been terminated is exactly the work that determines which programs are effective uses of federal dollars, and which are not.”

Data Collection for Accountability and Improvement

Another center housed within IES is the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It plays a vital role in collecting, standardizing, analyzing, and sharing data about the nation’s public school systems and student populations. It is an indispensable component of the education research community, providing the data required for evidence-based policymaking and evaluation. Like many of the other 13 federal statistical agencies, it stands under threat of being shut down by executive order.

The NCES runs the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation’s most comprehensive longitudinal catalog of student achievement data. It is based on regular assessments of students at the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades, helping to inform researchers, policymakers, school administrators, and teachers about how students are doing. Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, this data is explicitly named in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: schools receiving federal funds are required to participate in NAEP testing.

The testing starts with NAEP administrators knowing where schools, students, and teachers are located around the country. A national data set on schools and teachers, known as the Common Core of Data (no relation to Common Core standards), provides that information each year based on surveys conducted and verified by professional research firms. But some of Monday’s contract cancellations included those firms, and it is not clear what will happen to that data collection that undergirds the NAEP without those contractors. This is an example of the interconnectedness of these data collection efforts. If NAEP cannot be administered, the U.S. Department of Education would be violating the law.

Beyond its role in tracking overall student achievement, NAEP also provides insights into disparities between student groups, such as English learners, students in racial categories, students in low-income households, and more. These data help unveil inequities in educational access and outcomes, which are further illuminated by civil rights data (CRDC) collected by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR data document disparities in discipline practices, access to advanced coursework, and teacher quality—factors that shape student success long before test scores are measured. Without such data, we would be unable to diagnose the systemic barriers facing historically marginalized students or hold policymakers accountable for addressing them.

Just as NAEP and civil rights data illuminate disparities in student outcomes and school experiences, school finance data—particularly the Annual Survey of School System Finances (F-33) collected by NCES in conjunction with the U.S. Census Bureau—provides information about the funding structures that drive these inequities. The F-33 survey details district-level revenues and expenditures, breaking them down by federal, state, and local sources, revealing the extent to which funding depends on local property wealth rather than equitable state or federal allocations. Without this data, we would have little visibility into the stark funding gaps between high-poverty and affluent districts.

At its core, the collection and dissemination of federal education data uphold two fundamental tenets of a functioning democracy: transparency and accountability. Without reliable federally collected data, we risk relying on fragmented, inconsistent state reporting. This patchwork approach not only reduces comparability but also increases costs by forcing states to individually develop and maintain systems that lack the efficiency and standardization of a centralized effort. Imagine this work being duplicated by 50 different state agencies with 50 different methods for collecting data and no mechanism for analysis or standardization among them.

Without reliable federally collected data, we risk relying on fragmented, inconsistent state reporting.... Imagine this work being duplicated by 50 different state agencies.

Data and research is what allows us to understand how American students are faring in our schools and how to ensure that public education dollars are spent to improve their outcomes and help them succeed in school. Improving education is what will help maintain our nation’s competitive edge in innovation, business, and industry compared to other countries. If DOGE is truly concerned with efficiency, we should be investing in research and development and building up our infrastructure to support robust data collection, rather than crippling it.

Also see New America's growing collection of posts and statements on Defending the Department of Education.