Ed. Dept. Cuts Mean ‘Fewer Eyes on the Condition of Schools’

K-12 education is at an inflection point amid the ongoing vast and rapid changes at the federal level, experts said this week during an online event on education equity and research.

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Education have made a flurry of policy changes affecting schools—for example, ramping up immigration enforcement, working to prohibit transgender students from using restrooms or participating in sports teams aligned with their gender identity, and delaying federal funding and canceling grants. These actions have resulted in about 61 lawsuits, according to Education Week reporting.

Several of the K-12 field’s top luminaries met in an Oct. 21 webinar, hosted by the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study at Teachers College, Columbia University, to discuss the impact of these changes at large, as well as some educational bright spots.

They included former National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy Carr, and University of Southern California School of Education Dean Pedro A. Noguera.

Carr, a career employee at NCES who was appointed to a six-year term as commissioner by former President Joe Biden in 2021, was abruptly dismissed by the Trump administration in February. She had been in charge of overseeing the agency’s data collection and reports on academic achievement, the educator workforce, and the condition of schools.

NCES also administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the nation’s report card, which has tracked the educational progress of students since the 1970s.

Shortly after her dismissal, the Trump administration slashed the NCES staff further as part of a mass reduction-in-force at the Education Department.

“I’ve never witnessed a period like this in modern history for the federal education statistical community,” said Carr, who spent 35 years working at NCES. “[NCES] was hollowed out in a matter of weeks. … I think one of the biggest dangers is that we’re losing statistical memory of American education, so there are fewer eyes on the condition of schools.”

The current role of the government and what it means for education

While most actions that affect students’ and teachers’ day-to-day lives are decided at the state level, the federal government plays a significant role in overseeing and ensuring the rights of students, said Noguera.

In one notable example of federal involvement in education, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 to desegregate the schools and defend the rights of Black students entering Central High School, the dean added.

“What we saw in our past was the federal government saying educational rights are civil rights—that the federal government has a role in protecting those rights and ensuring that children are getting what they deserve and need,” said Noguera.

But now, he argued, there’s been a complete abandonment of that role.

The federal government also historically has pushed for data-driven conclusions that inform education policy decisions, the panelists said. For example, data from the nation’s report card often informs how to allocate federal funding, researchers have previously told Education Week.

“When we are able to track disparities in achievement, it’s an indication of disparities in opportunity,” said Noguera. “When you lose access to the data, you lose the ability to see what’s happening.”

There are other opportunities ahead, experts say

Even so, the panelists said there are still some bright spots in education policy and available resources to inspire change.

While the capacity of NCES has been reduced, Carr believes it could be reimagined as an AI-powered agency. Artificial intelligence could make diagnostic analysis of data more efficient and timelier, she said.

Data can also continue to be collected outside of the federal government, Carr said. For example, think tanks and research universities produce individuals who understand data, and they can work with media, consumers, and laypeople, as well as state and local government partners to dissect and utilize data and trends.

“The education ecosystem is larger than I thought it was,” she said. “After all of this happened, I realized that there were sectors that were important to the system.”