The So What: What We’re Watching, Week of March 3

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wrote a weekly post to elevate what was happening with the rapidly evolving education environment and the uncertainty that surrounded it. With changes at the federal level happening at breakneck speed, we’re back to help make sense of these changes—whether it’s concrete examples of what’s changing at the federal level and for states, responses and ideas from the field, or things our organization and others are exploring. To accomplish this, we’re periodically bringing you our thoughts on the most salient conversations happening as people work to navigate the current education and workforce field of play. 

 

We’re writing this column together to combine our perspectives: Jenn’s expertise comes from decades of education leadership experience, from the classroom to leading data and research efforts at the district and federal levels, while Paige brings almost two decades working on state and federal education data policy and issues.

The cancellation of a large number of contracts at the Department of Education (ED) has stirred up a lot of confusion and concern in recent weeks. Educators, communities, and advocacy groups (including us) are alarmed by the potential impacts of these cancellations. (In case you missed it, read a statement from DQC and our partners at ALI Coalition, Digital Promise, InnovateEDU, Knowledge Alliance, and Results for America.)

While news continues to come out about the details of these cancellations and decisions are being made daily that impact research and evidence-building, we’re here to bring you the “so what,” particularly for state leaders, students, and educators. From the beginning, the current administration has discussed how students are behind, using scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) as a talking point for why change is needed. During her nomination hearing, secretary nominee McMahon stated, “It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs, it is only to have the programs run more efficiently.” It’s unclear, given some of the impacts and timing of these cancellations, how ED will move forward to address student progress without the benefit of information to support their decisionmaking.  

To make sense of all of this, we’ve compiled the following summary. These terminated contracts will impact key education efforts in four ways by:

1. Halting ongoing research into pressing problems directly related to state and local education policies. These include:
   • An impact study of strategies to accelerate math learning in elementary school;
   • A synthesis of evidence on what works to improve K–12 school attendance; and
   • An evaluation of programs and strategies to improve access to dual enrollment—a stated priority of the ED secretary nominee—to improve postsecondary access and success.
2. Cancelling statutorily mandated evaluations to understand and ensure the transparency and efficacy of major national investments in education. These include:
   • The National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), which describes how families pay for postsecondary and students’ postsecondary and workforce outcomes—work required to comply with Higher Education Act (read DQC’s blog post on NPSAS data here);
   • A national evaluation of career and technical education (CTE) under the Perkins Act, (CTE is also a stated priority of the ED secretary nominee); and
   • The Condition of Education, an annual report that contains key indicators on all levels of education, labor force outcomes, and international comparisons. 
3. Compromising critical national-level education data that enables transparency and research. This information could never be replaced by individual state data collections. These include:
   • The Common Core of Data, which is the primary source of data on all K–12 schools, includes data on enrollment, students, and teachers, makes longitudinal analysis of school progress possible, is used to calculate how billions in federal Title I funding is distributed for low-income children, and enables the identification of public schools to take the NAEP assessment;
   • The High School and Beyond Longitudinal Study of 2020, a complex data collection on students throughout their high school careers;
   • The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2022–23, which provides important information on children’s early learning and development, preschool/early care and education experiences, transition into kindergarten, and progress through the elementary grades; and
   • An analysis of the secondary, postsecondary, employment, and earning outcomes of youth with disabilities.
4. Eliminating the support and guidance that ensure education data at all levels is protected, understood, and disseminated. These include:
   • A contract to analyze NAEP results which provides an annual snapshot of student achievement. Going forward, ED will administer NAEP, but there are no funds to understand the results and what they mean for student learning. It is also worth noting that the contract to participate in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was terminated.
   • A contract to support the dissemination of the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) reports and data products for data collections and surveys covered by the NCES’ statistics line.
   • A contract for interpreting data that the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) collects from colleges and universities. From the Washington Post: “The raw data will still be gathered, but the studies that made sense of it for the public are gone… ‘Sure, you have the raw data that scientists can fiddle with, but the necessary step of digesting that in ways that answer questions, it’s gone,’ a staffer said. ‘Now you need a PhD to make any sense of it.’”
   • A contract to provide support for reviewing memorandums of understanding and legal agreements.
   • Technical assistance to support the Statistical Standards and Data Confidentiality Staff (SSDCS) on statistical standards, confidentiality, and data security.

While things are changing quickly and some contracts may be reinstated, these cancellations have caused real harm, confusion, and uncertainty. Until any reinstatements are announced and the programs and analyses are back online, these fundamental data assets are still in flux. 

Given all of this, here are the questions we’re asking: 

• How will the confirmation of an Education Secretary impact these changes? Our hope is that having a confirmed secretary will allow for a more orderly and transparent process around decisionmaking. McMahon has tapped a number of data champions to help lead the Department of Education who have all demonstrated how much they value transparency and evidence in their decisionmaking. 
• How will this ripple out to states? States rely on federal-level research and research organizations to understand the broader education landscape and what’s working in other states. Without this information and more limited support for providers overall, states are left on their own to navigate interventions for students, without evidence of what works. 
• How, if at all, will this impact assessments and accountability? Changes to math, reading, and science assessments and accountability systems required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act could deeply impact the ability of educators and state, district, and school leaders to understand how students are progressing academically and how to support them.
• How will these contract terminations play out? While ED and IES have said mandated contracts and data collections will be recompeted or potentially reinstated in some circumstances, there is a lack of clarity around when (or how) this would happen, if any lengthy break would cause a disruption in data collection and evaluation, and how some of the work that was close to finished before cancellation could be salvaged or would need to be discarded altogether. Overall, these decisions have created confusion, inefficiency, and potential additional costs across the field.
• What else will Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) representatives cancel or constrain as they continue their review of federal agency contracts and grants? So far, mostly contracts have been the focus of DOGE efforts, but there are a lot of grants and cooperative agreements that have also been cut or could be in question.

We’ll continue to monitor these changes to data and research capacity at the federal level while working to more deeply understand how we can all support states to continue to do the important work of educating students and creating high-quality pathways through education into the workforce. 

Have questions or topics you’d like us to weigh in on? Let us know!