On February 13, APA Services joined the education research community in sending a letter to Congress (PDF, 74KB)opens in new window, to both the authorizing and appropriations committees with jurisdiction over the Department of Education, including the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), as well as to congressional offices that care about education research-related issues regarding the Department of Government Efficiency’s (doge) cancellation of IES contracts.
IES, an independent research arm within the Department of Education, supports research and dissemination of data including information on the state of U.S. student achievement and research-backed teaching practices. IES-supported research is used to better understand student achievement among other functions and by local and state departments of education, school districts, educators, colleges, and researchers.
IES’s core education research topics are supported by its Research, Development, and Dissemination (RD&D) program. These topics include reading and writing, early learning, mathematics and science education, and teacher effectiveness and pedagogy. Education systems and policies are also supported. RD&D also support critical activities, including those administered by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, the National Center for Education Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the National Center for Special Education Research. An example of IES’s investment is the Building Blocks program, an intervention developed with the National Science Foundation. The agencies collaborated to support research to understand how pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students learn early mathematics. The intervention is now a cornerstone of the Boston Public Schools pre-K program.
A second example is IES-supported pre-K math, a second early mathematics program, which has been tested and adapted for use with a broad range of learners from different backgrounds. The intervention narrowed the achievement gap and is being expanded for use with young Native American learners in the west and southwest United States.
Doge “unilaterally cancelled an unprecedented number of contracts that support evaluation, research, and data collection for the U.S. Department of Education.” The letter’s signatories expressed astonishment at the cancellation of work that brings evidence-based learning to students. They cited the state of Alabama as an example of where after the implementation of evidence-based practices scores have improved.” The cancellation of the contracts stops work to improve test scores, impedes accountability, hurts students’ education, and stops work statutorily directed by Congress.” Doge actions stopped research midway through or late in a study, precluding the benefit of the results of the studies’ conclusions. Further, doge resulted in the department falling out of compliance with the law.
The groups called on Congress to address doge’s action by instructing the acting secretary of education to reverse it. They also called for guardrails to prevent future cancellation of contracts. The groups further requested Congress ask the “acting secretary to provide a detailed response on what process will be implemented to ensure that cancellations are not part of the department’s operations moving forward.”
For more information, contact Angela L. Sharpe.