“If these knowledge are break up throughout a number of federal businesses,” Cheng stated, “there would probably be extra bureaucratic hurdles required to mix the information.”
Data 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 interchange fired employees who oversaw the Nationwide Evaluation of Academic Progress (NAEP), the biennial take a look at of American college students’ achievement. In November, it marketed four more openings for statisticians contained in the Federal Scholar Support 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 might additional delay these hires.
On the identical time, the demolition continues. Lower than two weeks after the Oct. 1 authorities shutdown, 466 further Schooling Division staff had been terminated — on prime of the roughly 2,000 misplaced since March 2025 by way of firings and voluntary departures. (The division employed about 4,000 at the beginning of the Trump administration.) A federal choose quickly blocked these latest layoffs on Oct. 15.
There are additionally different small new indicators of life. On Sept. 30 — simply earlier than the shutdown — the division quietly awarded nine new research and development 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 undertaking turned the premise for the web.
Every new undertaking, principally targeted on AI-driven personalised studying, obtained $500,000 to provide early proof of effectiveness. Recipients embrace universities, analysis organizations and ed tech companies. Initiatives that present promise might be eligible for future funding to scale up with extra college students.
Based on an individual acquainted with this system who spoke on background, the 9 initiatives had been chosen earlier than President Donald Trump took workplace, however the formal awards had 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 price range 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 might not be abandoning schooling innovation altogether.
This story about risks to federal education data was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Proof Points and different Hechinger newsletters.
