Photo via iStock/Taylor Flowe

Voices & Opinion

POV: Cuts to Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences Equals High Risk and Low Reward

Gutting funding for grants will have a long-term and devastating impact on our efforts to improve educational outcomes

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration, led by unelected and unconfirmed “efficiency expert” Elon Musk, has gutted the funding for numerous grants funded through the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the US Department of Education that funds the development and testing of innovative approaches for improving education outcomes for all students. Trump’s Secretary of Education Linda McMahon doubled down on the cuts, saying they were part of an audit and that it “was worth looking at the programs before the money goes out the door.” 

Some argue that the administration’s decision to make these drastic cuts at IES is unconstitutional; I will leave that to constitutional scholars and the courts to determine. However, in the case of IES, the cuts will have a long-term, devastating impact on our efforts to improve educational outcomes, and they are wasteful and inefficient. The public needs to know what is happening and why it is wrong.

IES was part of the Education Science Reform Act of 2002. It was passed with bipartisan congressional support and hailed by President George W. Bush as important to solving practical problems faced by our nation’s schools. The law was aimed at helping our education systems become more evidence-based by pursuing several key goals. These include overseeing annual progress of our nation’s schools in educating our children, maintaining critical databases on our educational progress, creating a system to design, develop, and test innovations using rigorous research methodologies, building a shared and trusted knowledge base for educators about what works, and using processes for generating the best ideas modeled after other very successful research agencies.

In the years since it was established, IES has made remarkable progress at achieving the goals set out by Congress. It houses and supports the National Center for Education Statistics, which, among other important functions, informs the public (including federal and state policymakers) about our educational progress. It has also established research centers designed to support researchers from across the United States in their efforts to conduct practical research on education innovations.

To ensure that IES produces high-quality research, conducted with integrity, an Office of Science was created to oversee peer-review processes and uphold the highest research standards. IES oversees large-scale evaluations of federally funded education programs and reports on their academic impact. It also houses the What Works Clearinghouse to provide educators and education leaders with the best information available about programs and practices that work and under what conditions they are most effective.

In short, by nearly every measure, IES has been successful at leading an evidence-based revolution in education in the United States. In fact, scholars from around the world point to IES as a model for evidence-based reform in government.

Why Musk’s cuts to IES will not lead to greater efficiency

The accomplishments IES, made during four presidential administrations (two Republican and two Democrat), are now threatened by cuts in the name of enhancing efficiency and cutting waste. The cuts will set us back decades and will leave us with limited evidence of progress as a country with regard to education and will further challenge an already struggling network of public schools. Perhaps weakening our 50+ systems of public education is in fact this administration’s motive.

The cuts to IES will not result in greater efficiency as Trump, Musk, and McMahon have touted. It is important to understand that the accomplishments I described above have all occurred with great efficiency, meaning they have been achieved with minimal budget expenditures. Consider that the IES annual budget is less than .01 percent of the federal budget, less than 1 percent of the total dollars spent on public education in the United States, and about 1 percent of the total US DOE budget.

In other words, since 2002, the competent IES staff has managed the various centers involved in the work of IES and have made tremendous progress at establishing a well-respected research agency with very lean resources. Cutting funds to grants and contracts that have been vetted thoughtfully by education scientists and deemed of educational significance both defies the rigorous process established by the agency and is the exact opposite of efficiency. It is wasteful and inefficient.

Members of Congress and the public must understand that IES plays a critical role in ensuring that we are doing the best we can for our nation’s schoolchildren, their families, and educators. The risks here are grave. Any effort by the Trump administration to curtail the work of IES is a waste of taxpayer dollars to give the public the impression that Elon Musk is effectively limiting government spending. This is not true. In fact, the impact of Musk’s cuts at IES will deeply and negatively impact an agency that has served the public admirably. 

 David J. Chard is dean emeritus and a professor of special education at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development; he served on the National Board for Education Sciences from 2013 to 2019. He can be reached at dchard@bu.edu.

“POV” is an opinion page that provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international. Anyone interested in submitting a piece, which should be about 700 words long, should contact today@bu.edu. BU Today reserves the right to reject or edit submissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University.