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"content": "\u003cp>Why do so many students struggle to understand what they read, even after they learn how to read?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a topic of hot debate among reading researchers. One camp has been arguing that schools have been going about it all wrong. These critics say that instead of drilling students on the main idea (similar to questions students will see on annual state exams), teachers should spend more time building students’ background knowledge of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-content-knowledge-reading/\">theory\u003c/a> is that the more familiar students are with science, history, geography and even art, the easier it will be for students to grasp new ideas when reading. Many educators are embracing this theory, and knowledge building lessons have been spreading rapidly across the country, from Baltimore to Mississippi to Colorado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-content-knowledge-reading/\">evidence\u003c/a> for this approach is still emerging, and some reading researchers urge caution. They worry that sometimes, too much time is being spent on background knowledge rather than \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-reading-comprehension-classroom/\">actually reading\u003c/a> and discussing texts. These skeptics argue students aren’t going to magically understand what they are reading just from knowing more about the world, and they need to be explicitly taught how to identify the main idea and how to summarize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debates like this are common in education as new research addresses unresolved issues, such as exactly how to teach reading once students have learned phonics and how to decode the words on the page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Early research showed that background knowledge plays a part,” said Kausalai Wijekumar, a professor of education at Texas A&M University, who has been studying reading instruction and recently produced a study that sheds more light on the debate. “People with good background knowledge seem to be able to read faster and understand quicker.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some children, particularly children from affluent families, she said, background knowledge is “enough” to unlock reading comprehension, but not for all. “If we want all the children to read, we have proven that they can be taught with the right strategies,” said Wijekumar. She has a body of research to back her position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar agrees that drilling students on the main point or the author’s purpose isn’t helpful because a struggling reader cannot come up with a point or a purpose from thin air. (She’s also not a fan of highlighting key words or graphic organizers, both common strategies for reading comprehension in schools.) Instead, Wijekumar advocates for a step-by-step process, conceived in the 1970s by her mentor and research partner, Bonnie J.F. Meyer, a professor emeritus at Penn State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first step is to guide students through a series of questions as they read, such as “Is there a problem?” “What caused it?” and “Is there a solution?” Based on their answers, students can then decide which structure the passage follows: cause and effect, problem and solution, comparisons or a sequence. Next, students fill in blanks — like in a Mad Libs worksheet — to help create a main idea statement. And finally, they practice expanding on that idea with relevant details to form a summary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar analyzed the story of Cinderella for me, using her approach. The problem? Cinderella is bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters. We learn this because she’s forced to do extra chores and isn’t allowed to attend the ball. The cause of the problem? They’re jealous of her. That’s why they take away her pretty clothes. Finally, the solution: A fairy godmother helps Cinderella go to the ball and meet Prince Charming. Students can then put all these elements together to come up with the main idea: Cinderella is bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters because they are jealous of her, but a fairy godmother saves her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a formulaic approach and there are certainly other ways of seeing or expressing the main idea. I wouldn’t have analyzed Cinderella that way. I would have guessed it’s a story about never giving up on your dreams even if your life is wretched now. But Wijekumar says it’s a helpful start for students who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very structured and systematic, and that provides a strong foundation,” Wijekumar said. “This is just the starting point. You can take it and layer on more things, but 99 percent of the children are having difficulty just starting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar transformed Meyer’s strategy into a computerized tutor called ITSS, which stands for Intelligent Tutoring using the Structure Strategy. About 200,000 students around the world use ITSS. Wijekumar’s nonprofit, \u003ca href=\"http://literacy.io/\">Literacy.IO\u003c/a>, charges schools $40 a student plus teacher training, which can run $800 per teacher, depending on school size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tutor allows students to practice reading comprehension at their own pace. ITSS was one of only \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-free-no-frills-programs-lead-the-class-in-new-federal-study-of-remote-learning/\">three online learning technologies\u003c/a> that demonstrated clear evidence for improving student achievement, according to a February 2021 report by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Wijekumar has continued to refine her reading program and test it with more students. Her most recent study, \u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-11106-001\">a large-scale replication in high poverty schools\u003c/a>, was highly successful according to one yardstick, but not so successful, according to another measure. It was published last year in the Journal of Educational Psychology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of six researchers led by Wijekumar randomly assigned 17 of 33 schools in the Northeast and along the Texas border to teach reading with ITSS, while the remaining 16 schools taught reading as usual. More than 1,200 fifth graders practiced their reading comprehension using ITSS for 45 minutes a week over six months. Their teachers received 16 hours of training in how to teach reading comprehension this way and also delivered traditional analog reading lessons to their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After six months, students who received this reading instruction posted significantly higher scores on a researcher-designed assessment, which measured students’ ability to write main ideas, recall key information and understand text structures. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups on a standardized test, the Gray Silent Reading Test (GSRT), which measured students’ general reading comprehension. The researchers did not report state test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/edu0000168\">Earlier studies\u003c/a> with wealthier students \u003ca href=\"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19345747.2013.853333\">showed improvements\u003c/a> on the standardized reading comprehension test. It’s hard to make sense of why this study showed giant benefits using one measure, but none using another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Substantial changes in the instruction were needed for these high-poverty students. Some were such weak readers that Wijekumar’s team had to draft easier texts so that students could practice the method. But the biggest change was 14 hours of additional teacher training and the creation of instructional guides for the teachers. Wijekumar’s strategies directly contradicted what their schools’ textbooks told them to do. At first, the students were confused with the teachers teaching them one way and ITSS another. So Wijekumar worked with the teachers to scrap their textbook instructions and teach her way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I consulted with Marissa Filderman, a respected reading expert who has \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1323802\">reviewed the literature on comprehension instruction for children who struggle\u003c/a> with reading and is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. She said despite the imperfect evidence from this study, she sees Wijekumar’s body of research as evidence that explicit strategy instruction is important along with building background knowledge and vocabulary. But it’s still an evolving science, and the research isn’t yet clear enough to guide teachers on how much time to spend on each aspect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Improving reading comprehension is critical, and I’ll be watching for new research to help answer these questions for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Shirley Liu contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-reading-comprehension-main-idea/\">\u003cem>teaching the main idea\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Early research showed that background knowledge plays a part,” said Kausalai Wijekumar, a professor of education at Texas A&M University, who has been studying reading instruction and recently produced a study that sheds more light on the debate. “People with good background knowledge seem to be able to read faster and understand quicker.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some children, particularly children from affluent families, she said, background knowledge is “enough” to unlock reading comprehension, but not for all. “If we want all the children to read, we have proven that they can be taught with the right strategies,” said Wijekumar. She has a body of research to back her position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar agrees that drilling students on the main point or the author’s purpose isn’t helpful because a struggling reader cannot come up with a point or a purpose from thin air. (She’s also not a fan of highlighting key words or graphic organizers, both common strategies for reading comprehension in schools.) Instead, Wijekumar advocates for a step-by-step process, conceived in the 1970s by her mentor and research partner, Bonnie J.F. Meyer, a professor emeritus at Penn State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first step is to guide students through a series of questions as they read, such as “Is there a problem?” “What caused it?” and “Is there a solution?” Based on their answers, students can then decide which structure the passage follows: cause and effect, problem and solution, comparisons or a sequence. Next, students fill in blanks — like in a Mad Libs worksheet — to help create a main idea statement. And finally, they practice expanding on that idea with relevant details to form a summary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar analyzed the story of Cinderella for me, using her approach. The problem? Cinderella is bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters. We learn this because she’s forced to do extra chores and isn’t allowed to attend the ball. The cause of the problem? They’re jealous of her. That’s why they take away her pretty clothes. Finally, the solution: A fairy godmother helps Cinderella go to the ball and meet Prince Charming. Students can then put all these elements together to come up with the main idea: Cinderella is bullied by her stepmother and stepsisters because they are jealous of her, but a fairy godmother saves her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a formulaic approach and there are certainly other ways of seeing or expressing the main idea. I wouldn’t have analyzed Cinderella that way. I would have guessed it’s a story about never giving up on your dreams even if your life is wretched now. But Wijekumar says it’s a helpful start for students who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very structured and systematic, and that provides a strong foundation,” Wijekumar said. “This is just the starting point. You can take it and layer on more things, but 99 percent of the children are having difficulty just starting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wijekumar transformed Meyer’s strategy into a computerized tutor called ITSS, which stands for Intelligent Tutoring using the Structure Strategy. About 200,000 students around the world use ITSS. Wijekumar’s nonprofit, \u003ca href=\"http://literacy.io/\">Literacy.IO\u003c/a>, charges schools $40 a student plus teacher training, which can run $800 per teacher, depending on school size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tutor allows students to practice reading comprehension at their own pace. ITSS was one of only \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-free-no-frills-programs-lead-the-class-in-new-federal-study-of-remote-learning/\">three online learning technologies\u003c/a> that demonstrated clear evidence for improving student achievement, according to a February 2021 report by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Wijekumar has continued to refine her reading program and test it with more students. Her most recent study, \u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-11106-001\">a large-scale replication in high poverty schools\u003c/a>, was highly successful according to one yardstick, but not so successful, according to another measure. It was published last year in the Journal of Educational Psychology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of six researchers led by Wijekumar randomly assigned 17 of 33 schools in the Northeast and along the Texas border to teach reading with ITSS, while the remaining 16 schools taught reading as usual. More than 1,200 fifth graders practiced their reading comprehension using ITSS for 45 minutes a week over six months. Their teachers received 16 hours of training in how to teach reading comprehension this way and also delivered traditional analog reading lessons to their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After six months, students who received this reading instruction posted significantly higher scores on a researcher-designed assessment, which measured students’ ability to write main ideas, recall key information and understand text structures. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups on a standardized test, the Gray Silent Reading Test (GSRT), which measured students’ general reading comprehension. The researchers did not report state test scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/edu0000168\">Earlier studies\u003c/a> with wealthier students \u003ca href=\"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19345747.2013.853333\">showed improvements\u003c/a> on the standardized reading comprehension test. It’s hard to make sense of why this study showed giant benefits using one measure, but none using another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Substantial changes in the instruction were needed for these high-poverty students. Some were such weak readers that Wijekumar’s team had to draft easier texts so that students could practice the method. But the biggest change was 14 hours of additional teacher training and the creation of instructional guides for the teachers. Wijekumar’s strategies directly contradicted what their schools’ textbooks told them to do. At first, the students were confused with the teachers teaching them one way and ITSS another. So Wijekumar worked with the teachers to scrap their textbook instructions and teach her way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I consulted with Marissa Filderman, a respected reading expert who has \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1323802\">reviewed the literature on comprehension instruction for children who struggle\u003c/a> with reading and is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. She said despite the imperfect evidence from this study, she sees Wijekumar’s body of research as evidence that explicit strategy instruction is important along with building background knowledge and vocabulary. But it’s still an evolving science, and the research isn’t yet clear enough to guide teachers on how much time to spend on each aspect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Improving reading comprehension is critical, and I’ll be watching for new research to help answer these questions for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Shirley Liu contributed reporting. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-reading-comprehension-main-idea/\">\u003cem>teaching the main idea\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Tech evangelists may be dazzled by the promise of AI, but two well-designed new studies — one in China and one by a leading AI company — signal trouble ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two studies were conducted by a team of international researchers who studied how Chinese students were using ChatGPT to help with English writing, and by researchers at Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude. They both come to a similar conclusion: Many students are letting AI do important brain work for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first study was published online in the British Journal of Education Technology in December 2024 and provocatively titled, “\u003ca href=\"https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjet.13544\">Beware of metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative artificial intelligence on learning motivation, processes, and performance.\u003c/a>” Researchers in China and Australia set up a laboratory experiment in the summer of 2023 in which 117 Chinese students were asked to read several texts, write an essay on them and then revise the essay. All of the work was in English, which wasn’t the students’ native tongue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions while completing the work. One group was allowed to use ChatGPT. The second group could consult a human writing coach. A third group was given a writing toolkit with checklists of things to review. A fourth group had no extra help and had to complete the assignment alone. In addition to writing essays, all the students took tests to measure how much they learned and filled out surveys on their emotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the researchers’ surprise, the students in the ChatGPT group improved their essays the most — even more than the group with human writing teachers. But the ChatGPT group didn’t learn more about the topic they read and wrote about, nor did the ChatGPT students feel more motivated to write and learn than students in the other three groups. Indeed, there were signs that the students who enjoyed the assignment the most and maintained interest were those who merely received the writing checklist but otherwise completed the assignment without AI or human handholding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the researchers analyzed how students completed their work on computers, they noticed that students who had access to AI or a human were less likely to refer to the reading materials. These two groups revised their essays primarily by interacting with ChatGPT or chatting with the human. Those with only the checklist spent the most time looking over their essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI group spent less time evaluating their essays and making sure they understood what the assignment was asking them to do. The AI group was also prone to copying and pasting text that the bot had generated, even though researchers had prompted the bot not to write directly for the students. (It was apparently easy for the students to bypass this guardrail, even in the controlled laboratory.) Researchers mapped out all the cognitive processes involved in writing and saw that the AI students were most focused on interacting with ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This highlights a crucial issue in human-AI interaction,” the researchers wrote. “Potential metacognitive laziness.” By that, they mean a dependence on AI assistance, offloading thought processes to the bot and not engaging directly with the tasks that are needed to synthesize, analyze and explain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Learners might become overly reliant on ChatGPT, using it to easily complete specific learning tasks without fully engaging in the learning,” the authors wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-education-report-how-university-students-use-claude\">second study, by Anthropi\u003c/a>c, was released in April during the ASU+GSV education investor conference in San Diego. In this study, in-house researchers at Anthropic studied how university students actually interact with its AI bot, called Claude, a competitor to ChatGPT. That methodology is a big improvement over surveys of students who may not accurately remember exactly how they used AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers began by collecting all the conversations over an 18-day period with people who had created Claude accounts using their university addresses. (The description of the study says that the conversations were anonymized to protect student privacy.) Then, researchers filtered those conversations for signs that the person was likely to be a student, seeking help with academics, school work, studying, learning a new concept or academic research. Researchers ended up with 574,740 conversations to analyze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results? Students primarily used Claude for creating things (40 percent of the conversations), such as creating a coding project, and analyzing (30 percent of the conversations), such as analyzing legal concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Creating and analyzing are the most popular tasks university students ask Claude to do for them\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65515\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2052\" height=\"1462\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy.jpg 2052w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-800x570.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1020x727.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-768x547.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1536x1094.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-2048x1459.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1920x1368.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2052px) 100vw, 2052px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic’s researchers noted that these were higher-order cognitive functions, not basic ones, according to a hierarchy of skills, known as \u003ca href=\"https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/taxonomies-learning\">Bloom’s Taxonomy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This raises questions about ensuring students don’t offload critical cognitive tasks to AI systems,” the Anthropic researchers wrote. “There are legitimate worries that AI systems may provide a crutch for students, stifling the development of foundational skills needed to support higher-order thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic’s researchers also noticed that students were asking Claude for direct answers almost half the time with minimal back-and-forth engagement. Researchers described how even when students were engaging collaboratively with Claude, the conversations might not be helping students learn more. For example, a student would ask Claude to “solve probability and statistics homework problems with explanations.” That might spark “multiple conversational turns between AI and the student, but still offloads significant thinking to the AI,” the researchers wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic was hesitant to say it saw direct evidence of cheating. Researchers wrote about an example of students asking for direct answers to multiple-choice questions, but Anthropic had no way of knowing if it was a take-home exam or a practice test. The researchers also found examples of students asking Claude to rewrite texts to avoid plagiarism detection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope is that AI can improve learning through immediate feedback and personalizing instruction for each student. But these studies are showing that AI is also making it easier for students \u003cem>not \u003c/em>to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI advocates say that educators need to redesign assignments so that students cannot complete them by asking AI to do it for them and educate students on how to use AI in ways that maximize learning. To me, this seems like wishful thinking. Real learning is hard, and if there are shortcuts, it’s human nature to take them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Wardle, director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University, is worried both about writing and about human creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Writing is not correctness or avoiding error,” she \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elizabethwardle_the-new-york-magazine-article-about-students-activity-7326353951744761856-K6Lk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABOsY8BDVlfLq8BBp90gugfoOY6nDIh4D8\">posted on LinkedIn\u003c/a>. “Writing is not just a product. The act of writing is a form of thinking and learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wardle cautioned about the long-term effects of too much reliance on AI, “When people use AI for everything, they are not thinking or learning,” she said. “And then what? Who will build, create, and invent when we just rely on AI to do everything?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a warning we all should heed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-offload-critical-thinking-ai/\">\u003cem>how students use AI\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Tech evangelists may be dazzled by the promise of AI, but two well-designed new studies — one in China and one by a leading AI company — signal trouble ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two studies were conducted by a team of international researchers who studied how Chinese students were using ChatGPT to help with English writing, and by researchers at Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude. They both come to a similar conclusion: Many students are letting AI do important brain work for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first study was published online in the British Journal of Education Technology in December 2024 and provocatively titled, “\u003ca href=\"https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjet.13544\">Beware of metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative artificial intelligence on learning motivation, processes, and performance.\u003c/a>” Researchers in China and Australia set up a laboratory experiment in the summer of 2023 in which 117 Chinese students were asked to read several texts, write an essay on them and then revise the essay. All of the work was in English, which wasn’t the students’ native tongue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions while completing the work. One group was allowed to use ChatGPT. The second group could consult a human writing coach. A third group was given a writing toolkit with checklists of things to review. A fourth group had no extra help and had to complete the assignment alone. In addition to writing essays, all the students took tests to measure how much they learned and filled out surveys on their emotions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the researchers’ surprise, the students in the ChatGPT group improved their essays the most — even more than the group with human writing teachers. But the ChatGPT group didn’t learn more about the topic they read and wrote about, nor did the ChatGPT students feel more motivated to write and learn than students in the other three groups. Indeed, there were signs that the students who enjoyed the assignment the most and maintained interest were those who merely received the writing checklist but otherwise completed the assignment without AI or human handholding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the researchers analyzed how students completed their work on computers, they noticed that students who had access to AI or a human were less likely to refer to the reading materials. These two groups revised their essays primarily by interacting with ChatGPT or chatting with the human. Those with only the checklist spent the most time looking over their essays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AI group spent less time evaluating their essays and making sure they understood what the assignment was asking them to do. The AI group was also prone to copying and pasting text that the bot had generated, even though researchers had prompted the bot not to write directly for the students. (It was apparently easy for the students to bypass this guardrail, even in the controlled laboratory.) Researchers mapped out all the cognitive processes involved in writing and saw that the AI students were most focused on interacting with ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This highlights a crucial issue in human-AI interaction,” the researchers wrote. “Potential metacognitive laziness.” By that, they mean a dependence on AI assistance, offloading thought processes to the bot and not engaging directly with the tasks that are needed to synthesize, analyze and explain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Learners might become overly reliant on ChatGPT, using it to easily complete specific learning tasks without fully engaging in the learning,” the authors wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-education-report-how-university-students-use-claude\">second study, by Anthropi\u003c/a>c, was released in April during the ASU+GSV education investor conference in San Diego. In this study, in-house researchers at Anthropic studied how university students actually interact with its AI bot, called Claude, a competitor to ChatGPT. That methodology is a big improvement over surveys of students who may not accurately remember exactly how they used AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers began by collecting all the conversations over an 18-day period with people who had created Claude accounts using their university addresses. (The description of the study says that the conversations were anonymized to protect student privacy.) Then, researchers filtered those conversations for signs that the person was likely to be a student, seeking help with academics, school work, studying, learning a new concept or academic research. Researchers ended up with 574,740 conversations to analyze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results? Students primarily used Claude for creating things (40 percent of the conversations), such as creating a coding project, and analyzing (30 percent of the conversations), such as analyzing legal concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Creating and analyzing are the most popular tasks university students ask Claude to do for them\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65515\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2052\" height=\"1462\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy.jpg 2052w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-800x570.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1020x727.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-768x547.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1536x1094.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-2048x1459.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Claude-Blooms-Taxonomy-1920x1368.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2052px) 100vw, 2052px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic’s researchers noted that these were higher-order cognitive functions, not basic ones, according to a hierarchy of skills, known as \u003ca href=\"https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/taxonomies-learning\">Bloom’s Taxonomy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This raises questions about ensuring students don’t offload critical cognitive tasks to AI systems,” the Anthropic researchers wrote. “There are legitimate worries that AI systems may provide a crutch for students, stifling the development of foundational skills needed to support higher-order thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic’s researchers also noticed that students were asking Claude for direct answers almost half the time with minimal back-and-forth engagement. Researchers described how even when students were engaging collaboratively with Claude, the conversations might not be helping students learn more. For example, a student would ask Claude to “solve probability and statistics homework problems with explanations.” That might spark “multiple conversational turns between AI and the student, but still offloads significant thinking to the AI,” the researchers wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic was hesitant to say it saw direct evidence of cheating. Researchers wrote about an example of students asking for direct answers to multiple-choice questions, but Anthropic had no way of knowing if it was a take-home exam or a practice test. The researchers also found examples of students asking Claude to rewrite texts to avoid plagiarism detection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope is that AI can improve learning through immediate feedback and personalizing instruction for each student. But these studies are showing that AI is also making it easier for students \u003cem>not \u003c/em>to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AI advocates say that educators need to redesign assignments so that students cannot complete them by asking AI to do it for them and educate students on how to use AI in ways that maximize learning. To me, this seems like wishful thinking. Real learning is hard, and if there are shortcuts, it’s human nature to take them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Wardle, director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University, is worried both about writing and about human creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Writing is not correctness or avoiding error,” she \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elizabethwardle_the-new-york-magazine-article-about-students-activity-7326353951744761856-K6Lk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABOsY8BDVlfLq8BBp90gugfoOY6nDIh4D8\">posted on LinkedIn\u003c/a>. “Writing is not just a product. The act of writing is a form of thinking and learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wardle cautioned about the long-term effects of too much reliance on AI, “When people use AI for everything, they are not thinking or learning,” she said. “And then what? Who will build, create, and invent when we just rely on AI to do everything?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a warning we all should heed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-offload-critical-thinking-ai/\">\u003cem>how students use AI\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "three-fourths-of-national-science-foundation-funding-cuts-hit-education",
"title": "Three-fourths of National Science Foundation Funding Cuts Hit Education",
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"content": "\u003cp>The outlook for federal spending on education research continues to be grim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That became clear last week with more \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-nsf-ed-research-pummeled/\">cutbacks to education grants and mass firings at the National Science Foundation (NSF)\u003c/a>, the independent federal agency that supports both research and education in science, engineering and math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth round of cutbacks took place on May 9. NSF observers were still trying to piece together the size and scope of this wave of destruction. A division focused on equity in education was eliminated and all its employees were fired. And the process for reviewing and approving future research grants was thrown into chaos with the elimination of division directors who were stripped of their powers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, there was more clarity surrounding a third round of cuts that took place a week earlier on May 2. That round terminated more than 330 grants, raising the total number of terminated grants to at least 1,379, according to \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/\">Grant Watch\u003c/a>, a new project launched to track the Trump administration’s termination of grants at scientific research agencies. \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html\">All but two\u003c/a> of the terminated grants in early May were in the education division, and mostly targeted efforts to promote equity by increasing the participation of women and Black and Hispanic students in STEM fields. The number of active grants by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/edu/ees\">Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM\u003c/a> within the education directorate was slashed almost in half, from \u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/scott-delaney.bsky.social/post/3lokbze4g4k2n\">902 research grants to 461\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-nsf-ed-research-pummeled/\">two earlier rounds of NSF cuts at in April\u003c/a>, education now accounts for \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/nsf-summary-2025-05-07.html\">more than half\u003c/a> of the nearly 1,400 terminated grants and almost three-quarters of their $1 billion value. Those dollars will no longer flow to universities and research organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuts to STEM education dominate NSF grant terminations\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65496\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65496\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-800x344.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-160x69.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-768x330.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025 https://grant-watch.us/nsf-summary-2025-05-07.html\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than half the terminated grants…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65497\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"602\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-800x493.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-160x99.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-768x473.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… and nearly three-quarters of their $1 billion value are in education\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65493\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-65493 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"602\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-800x493.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-160x99.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-768x473.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Data source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025. Charts by Jill Barshay/The Hechinger Report\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The cuts are being felt across the nation. Grant Watch also created a map of the United States, showing that both red and blue states are losing federal research dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65494\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"668\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-800x547.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-768x525.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It remains unclear exactly how NSF is choosing which grants to cancel and exactly who is making the decisions. Weekly waves of cuts began after the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE entered NSF headquarters in mid April. Only 40 percent of the terminated grants were also in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-led-investigation-uncovers-2-billion-in-woke-dei-grants-at-nsf-releases-full-database\">database\u003c/a> of 3,400 research grants compiled last year by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Cruz \u003ca href=\"https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-led-investigation-uncovers-2-billion-in-woke-dei-grants-at-nsf-releases-full-database\">characterized\u003c/a> them as “questionable projects that promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.” Sixty percent were not on the Cruz list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65495\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"662\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-800x542.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-768x520.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other NSF cuts also affect education. Earlier this year, NSF cut in half the number of new students that it would support through graduate school from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01098-9\">2,000 to 1,000\u003c/a>. Universities are bracing to hear this summer if NSF will continue to support graduate students who are already a part of its graduate research fellowship program.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Developing Story\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NSF watchers were still compiling a list of the research grants that were terminated on May 9, the most recent fourth round of research cuts. It was unclear if any research grants to promote equity in STEM education remained active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM, a unit of the Education Directorate, was “sunset,” according to a May 9 email sent to NSF employees and obtained by the Hechinger Report, and all of its employees were fired. According to the email, this “reduction in force” is slated to be completed by July 12. However, later on May 9, a federal judge in San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393777/trump-rifs-court-mass-layoff-doge\">temporarily blocked the Trump administration\u003c/a> from implementing its “reduction in force” firings of federal employees at the NSF and 19 other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several congressionally mandated programs are housed within the eliminated equity division, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/lsamp-louis-stokes-alliances-minority-participation\">Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation\u003c/a> (LSAMP) and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/nsfs-eddie-bernice-johnson-inclusion-across-nation\">Eddie Bernice Johnson initiative\u003c/a>, which promotes STEM participation for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process for reviewing and approving new grant awards was thrown into chaos with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-nsf-faces-radical-shake-officials-abolish-its-37-divisions\">elimination of all NSF division directors\u003c/a>, a group of middle managers who were stripped of their powers on May 8. In addition, NSF \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-slashes-number-rotators-and-well-paid-managers-part-restructuring\">slashed its ranks of its most senior executives and its visiting scientists, engineers and educators\u003c/a>. That leaves many leadership positions at NSF uncertain, including the head of the entire education directorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Legal Update\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An initial hearing for a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-researchers-sue-trump/\">group of three legal cases by education researchers\u003c/a> against the Department of Education is scheduled for May 16. At the hearing, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hear arguments over whether the court should temporarily restore terminated research studies and data collections and bring back fired Education Department employees while it considers whether the Trump administration exceeded its executive authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A first hearing scheduled for May 9 was postponed. At the May 16 hearing, the court will hear two similar motions from two different cases: one filed by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), and the other filed by National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). A third suit by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) was filed in federal court in Maryland and will not be part of the May 16 hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-three-fourths-nsf-funding-cuts-education/\">\u003cem>NSF education cuts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The outlook for federal spending on education research continues to be grim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That became clear last week with more \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-nsf-ed-research-pummeled/\">cutbacks to education grants and mass firings at the National Science Foundation (NSF)\u003c/a>, the independent federal agency that supports both research and education in science, engineering and math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth round of cutbacks took place on May 9. NSF observers were still trying to piece together the size and scope of this wave of destruction. A division focused on equity in education was eliminated and all its employees were fired. And the process for reviewing and approving future research grants was thrown into chaos with the elimination of division directors who were stripped of their powers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, there was more clarity surrounding a third round of cuts that took place a week earlier on May 2. That round terminated more than 330 grants, raising the total number of terminated grants to at least 1,379, according to \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/\">Grant Watch\u003c/a>, a new project launched to track the Trump administration’s termination of grants at scientific research agencies. \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html\">All but two\u003c/a> of the terminated grants in early May were in the education division, and mostly targeted efforts to promote equity by increasing the participation of women and Black and Hispanic students in STEM fields. The number of active grants by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/edu/ees\">Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM\u003c/a> within the education directorate was slashed almost in half, from \u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/scott-delaney.bsky.social/post/3lokbze4g4k2n\">902 research grants to 461\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-nsf-ed-research-pummeled/\">two earlier rounds of NSF cuts at in April\u003c/a>, education now accounts for \u003ca href=\"https://grant-watch.us/nsf-summary-2025-05-07.html\">more than half\u003c/a> of the nearly 1,400 terminated grants and almost three-quarters of their $1 billion value. Those dollars will no longer flow to universities and research organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuts to STEM education dominate NSF grant terminations\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65496\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65496\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-800x344.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-160x69.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-768x330.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025 https://grant-watch.us/nsf-summary-2025-05-07.html\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More than half the terminated grants…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65497\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"602\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-800x493.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-160x99.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-2-768x473.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… and nearly three-quarters of their $1 billion value are in education\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65493\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-65493 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"602\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-800x493.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-160x99.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-3-768x473.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Data source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025. Charts by Jill Barshay/The Hechinger Report\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The cuts are being felt across the nation. Grant Watch also created a map of the United States, showing that both red and blue states are losing federal research dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65494\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"668\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-800x547.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-4-768x525.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It remains unclear exactly how NSF is choosing which grants to cancel and exactly who is making the decisions. Weekly waves of cuts began after the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE entered NSF headquarters in mid April. Only 40 percent of the terminated grants were also in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-led-investigation-uncovers-2-billion-in-woke-dei-grants-at-nsf-releases-full-database\">database\u003c/a> of 3,400 research grants compiled last year by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Cruz \u003ca href=\"https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-led-investigation-uncovers-2-billion-in-woke-dei-grants-at-nsf-releases-full-database\">characterized\u003c/a> them as “questionable projects that promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.” Sixty percent were not on the Cruz list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65495\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"662\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-800x542.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/05/Hechinger-NSF-5-768x520.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Grant Watch, May 7, 2025\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other NSF cuts also affect education. Earlier this year, NSF cut in half the number of new students that it would support through graduate school from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01098-9\">2,000 to 1,000\u003c/a>. Universities are bracing to hear this summer if NSF will continue to support graduate students who are already a part of its graduate research fellowship program.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Developing Story\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NSF watchers were still compiling a list of the research grants that were terminated on May 9, the most recent fourth round of research cuts. It was unclear if any research grants to promote equity in STEM education remained active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM, a unit of the Education Directorate, was “sunset,” according to a May 9 email sent to NSF employees and obtained by the Hechinger Report, and all of its employees were fired. According to the email, this “reduction in force” is slated to be completed by July 12. However, later on May 9, a federal judge in San Francisco \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393777/trump-rifs-court-mass-layoff-doge\">temporarily blocked the Trump administration\u003c/a> from implementing its “reduction in force” firings of federal employees at the NSF and 19 other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several congressionally mandated programs are housed within the eliminated equity division, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/lsamp-louis-stokes-alliances-minority-participation\">Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation\u003c/a> (LSAMP) and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/nsfs-eddie-bernice-johnson-inclusion-across-nation\">Eddie Bernice Johnson initiative\u003c/a>, which promotes STEM participation for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process for reviewing and approving new grant awards was thrown into chaos with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-nsf-faces-radical-shake-officials-abolish-its-37-divisions\">elimination of all NSF division directors\u003c/a>, a group of middle managers who were stripped of their powers on May 8. In addition, NSF \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-slashes-number-rotators-and-well-paid-managers-part-restructuring\">slashed its ranks of its most senior executives and its visiting scientists, engineers and educators\u003c/a>. That leaves many leadership positions at NSF uncertain, including the head of the entire education directorate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Legal Update\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An initial hearing for a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-researchers-sue-trump/\">group of three legal cases by education researchers\u003c/a> against the Department of Education is scheduled for May 16. At the hearing, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hear arguments over whether the court should temporarily restore terminated research studies and data collections and bring back fired Education Department employees while it considers whether the Trump administration exceeded its executive authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A first hearing scheduled for May 9 was postponed. At the May 16 hearing, the court will hear two similar motions from two different cases: one filed by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), and the other filed by National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). A third suit by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) was filed in federal court in Maryland and will not be part of the May 16 hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-three-fourths-nsf-funding-cuts-education/\">\u003cem>NSF education cuts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Some of the biggest names in education research — who often oppose each other in scholarly and policy debates — are now united in their desire to fight the cuts to data and scientific studies at the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The roster includes both Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the first head of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) who initiated studies for private school vouchers, and Sean Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist who studies inequity in education. They are just two of the dozens of scholars who have submitted declarations to the courts against the department and Secretary Linda McMahon. They describe how their work has been harmed and argue that the cuts will devastate education research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Professional organizations representing the scholars are asking the courts to restore terminated research and data and reverse mass firings at the Institute of Education Sciences, the division that collects data on students and schools, awards research grants, highlights effective practices and measures student achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three major suits were filed last month in U.S. federal courts, each brought by two different professional organizations. The six groups are the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). The American Educational Research Association alone represents 25,000 researchers and there is considerable overlap in membership among the professional associations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prominent left-wing and progressive legal organizations spearheaded the suits and are representing the associations. They are Public Citizen, Democracy Forward and the Legal Defense Fund, which was originally founded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) but is an independent legal organization. Allison Scharfstein, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, said education data is critical to documenting educational disparities and improve education for Black and Hispanic students. “We know that the data is needed for educational equity,” Scharfstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officers at the research associations described the complex calculations in suing the government, mindful that many of them work at universities that are under attack by the Trump administration and that its members are worried about retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A situation like this requires a bit of a leap of faith,” said Elizabeth Tipton, president of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and a statistician at Northwestern University. “We were reminded that we are the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, and that this is an existential threat. If the destruction that we see continues, we won’t exist, and our members won’t exist. This kind of research won’t exist. And so the board ultimately decided that the tradeoffs were in our favor, in the sense that whether we won or we lost, that we had to stand up for this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three suits are similar in that they all contend that the Trump administration exceeded its executive authority by eliminating activities Congress requires by law. Private citizens or organizations are generally barred from suing the federal government, which enjoys legal protection known as “sovereign immunity.” But under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, private organizations can ask the courts to intervene when executive agencies have acted arbitrarily, capriciously and not in accordance with the law. The suits point out, for example, that the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 specifically requires the Education Department to operate Regional Education Laboratories and conduct longitudinal and special data collections, activities that the Education Department eliminated in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The suits argue that it is impossible for the Education Department to carry out its congressionally required duties, such as the awarding of grants to study and identify effective teaching practices, after the March firing of almost 90 percent of the IES staff and the suspension of panels to review grant proposals. The research organizations argue that their members and the field of education research will be irreparably harmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of immediate concern are two June deadlines. Beginning June 1, researchers are scheduled to lose remote access to restricted datasets, which can include personally identifiable information about students. The suits contend that loss harms the ability of researchers to finish projects in progress and plan future studies. The researchers say they are also unable to publish or present studies that use this data because there is no one remaining inside the Education Department to review their papers for any inadvertent disclosure of student data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second concern is that the termination of more than 1,300 Education Department employees will become final by June 10. Technically, these employees have been on administrative leave since March, and lawyers for the education associations are concerned that it will be impossible to rehire these veteran statisticians and research experts for congressionally required tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The suits describe additional worries. Outside contractors are responsible for storing historical datasets because the Education Department doesn’t have its own data warehouse, and researchers are worried about who will maintain this critical data in the months and years ahead now that the contracts have been canceled. Another concern is that the terminated contracts for research and surveys include clauses that will force researchers to delete data about their subjects. “Years of work have gone into these studies,” said Dan McGrath, an attorney at Democracy Forward. “At some point it won’t be possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all three of the suits, lawyers have asked the courts for a preliminary injunction to reverse the cuts and firings, temporarily restoring the studies and bringing federal employees back to the Education Department to continue their work while the judges take more time to decide whether the Trump administration exceeded its authority. A first hearing on a temporary injunction is scheduled on Thursday in federal district court in Washington.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of people have been waiting for this. In February, when DOGE first started cutting non-ideological studies and data collections at the Education Department, I wondered why Congress wasn’t protesting that its laws were being ignored. And I was wondering where the research community was. It was so hard to get anyone to talk on the record. Now these suits, combined with Harvard University’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/politics/harvard-trump.html\">resistance to the Trump administration\u003c/a>, show that higher education is finally finding its voice and fighting what it sees as existential threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three suits:\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Public Citizen suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Public Citizen Litigation Group\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the U.S. Department of Education\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-11.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, Public Citizen \u003ca href=\"https://www.citizen.org/news/lawsuit-challenges-trump-admins-dismantling-of-institute-of-education-sciences/\">press release\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Data infrastructure. “We want to do all that we can to protect essential data and research infrastructure,” said Michal Kurlaender, president of AEFP and a professor at University of California, Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: Public Citizen filed a request for a temporary injunction on April 17 that was accompanied by declarations from researchers on how they and the field of education have been harmed. The Education Department filed a response on April 30. A hearing is scheduled for May 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003col start=\"2\">\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Democracy Forward suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Democracy Forward\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Acting Director of the Institute of Education Sciences Matthew Soldner\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 14\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1-Complaint-IES.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, Democracy Forward \u003ca href=\"https://democracyforward.org/updates/experts-defend-education-research-that-benefits-all-americans-from-trump-administration-threats/\">press release\u003c/a>, AERA \u003ca href=\"https://www.aera.net/Newsroom/AERA-Files-Lawsuit-Against-Education-Department\">letter to members\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Future research. “IES has been critical to fostering research on what works, and what does not work, and for providing this information to schools so they can best prepare students for their future,” said Ellen Weiss, executive director of SREE. “Our graduate students are stalled in their work and upended in their progress toward a degree. Practitioners and policymakers also suffer great harm as they are left to drive decisions without the benefit of empirical data and high-quality research,” said Felice Levine, executive director of AERA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed April 29, accompanied by declarations from researchers on how their work is harmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003col start=\"3\">\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Legal Defense Fund suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Legal Defense Fund\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: The U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 24\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/NAED-et-al-v-McMahon-et-al.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, LDF \u003ca href=\"https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/ldf-sues-u-s-department-of-education-on-behalf-of-education-research-organizations-over-discontinuation-of-critical-demographic-data-collection/\">press release\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Data quality. “The law requires not only data access but data quality,” said Andrew Ho, a Harvard University professor of education and former president of the National Council on Measurement in Education. “For 88 years, our organization has upheld standards for valid measurements and the research that depends on these measurements. We do so again today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed May 2.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>*Correction: This paragraph was corrected to make clear that lawyers in all three suits have asked the courts to temporarily reverse the research and data cuts and personnel firings.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-researchers-sue-trump/\">\u003cem>Education Department lawsuits\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Some of the biggest names in education research — who often oppose each other in scholarly and policy debates — are now united in their desire to fight the cuts to data and scientific studies at the U.S. Department of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The roster includes both Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the first head of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) who initiated studies for private school vouchers, and Sean Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist who studies inequity in education. They are just two of the dozens of scholars who have submitted declarations to the courts against the department and Secretary Linda McMahon. They describe how their work has been harmed and argue that the cuts will devastate education research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Professional organizations representing the scholars are asking the courts to restore terminated research and data and reverse mass firings at the Institute of Education Sciences, the division that collects data on students and schools, awards research grants, highlights effective practices and measures student achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three major suits were filed last month in U.S. federal courts, each brought by two different professional organizations. The six groups are the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). The American Educational Research Association alone represents 25,000 researchers and there is considerable overlap in membership among the professional associations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prominent left-wing and progressive legal organizations spearheaded the suits and are representing the associations. They are Public Citizen, Democracy Forward and the Legal Defense Fund, which was originally founded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) but is an independent legal organization. Allison Scharfstein, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, said education data is critical to documenting educational disparities and improve education for Black and Hispanic students. “We know that the data is needed for educational equity,” Scharfstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officers at the research associations described the complex calculations in suing the government, mindful that many of them work at universities that are under attack by the Trump administration and that its members are worried about retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A situation like this requires a bit of a leap of faith,” said Elizabeth Tipton, president of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and a statistician at Northwestern University. “We were reminded that we are the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, and that this is an existential threat. If the destruction that we see continues, we won’t exist, and our members won’t exist. This kind of research won’t exist. And so the board ultimately decided that the tradeoffs were in our favor, in the sense that whether we won or we lost, that we had to stand up for this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three suits are similar in that they all contend that the Trump administration exceeded its executive authority by eliminating activities Congress requires by law. Private citizens or organizations are generally barred from suing the federal government, which enjoys legal protection known as “sovereign immunity.” But under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, private organizations can ask the courts to intervene when executive agencies have acted arbitrarily, capriciously and not in accordance with the law. The suits point out, for example, that the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 specifically requires the Education Department to operate Regional Education Laboratories and conduct longitudinal and special data collections, activities that the Education Department eliminated in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The suits argue that it is impossible for the Education Department to carry out its congressionally required duties, such as the awarding of grants to study and identify effective teaching practices, after the March firing of almost 90 percent of the IES staff and the suspension of panels to review grant proposals. The research organizations argue that their members and the field of education research will be irreparably harmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of immediate concern are two June deadlines. Beginning June 1, researchers are scheduled to lose remote access to restricted datasets, which can include personally identifiable information about students. The suits contend that loss harms the ability of researchers to finish projects in progress and plan future studies. The researchers say they are also unable to publish or present studies that use this data because there is no one remaining inside the Education Department to review their papers for any inadvertent disclosure of student data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second concern is that the termination of more than 1,300 Education Department employees will become final by June 10. Technically, these employees have been on administrative leave since March, and lawyers for the education associations are concerned that it will be impossible to rehire these veteran statisticians and research experts for congressionally required tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The suits describe additional worries. Outside contractors are responsible for storing historical datasets because the Education Department doesn’t have its own data warehouse, and researchers are worried about who will maintain this critical data in the months and years ahead now that the contracts have been canceled. Another concern is that the terminated contracts for research and surveys include clauses that will force researchers to delete data about their subjects. “Years of work have gone into these studies,” said Dan McGrath, an attorney at Democracy Forward. “At some point it won’t be possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all three of the suits, lawyers have asked the courts for a preliminary injunction to reverse the cuts and firings, temporarily restoring the studies and bringing federal employees back to the Education Department to continue their work while the judges take more time to decide whether the Trump administration exceeded its authority. A first hearing on a temporary injunction is scheduled on Thursday in federal district court in Washington.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of people have been waiting for this. In February, when DOGE first started cutting non-ideological studies and data collections at the Education Department, I wondered why Congress wasn’t protesting that its laws were being ignored. And I was wondering where the research community was. It was so hard to get anyone to talk on the record. Now these suits, combined with Harvard University’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/politics/harvard-trump.html\">resistance to the Trump administration\u003c/a>, show that higher education is finally finding its voice and fighting what it sees as existential threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The three suits:\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Public Citizen suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Public Citizen Litigation Group\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the U.S. Department of Education\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-11.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, Public Citizen \u003ca href=\"https://www.citizen.org/news/lawsuit-challenges-trump-admins-dismantling-of-institute-of-education-sciences/\">press release\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Data infrastructure. “We want to do all that we can to protect essential data and research infrastructure,” said Michal Kurlaender, president of AEFP and a professor at University of California, Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: Public Citizen filed a request for a temporary injunction on April 17 that was accompanied by declarations from researchers on how they and the field of education have been harmed. The Education Department filed a response on April 30. A hearing is scheduled for May 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003col start=\"2\">\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Democracy Forward suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Democracy Forward\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Acting Director of the Institute of Education Sciences Matthew Soldner\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 14\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1-Complaint-IES.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, Democracy Forward \u003ca href=\"https://democracyforward.org/updates/experts-defend-education-research-that-benefits-all-americans-from-trump-administration-threats/\">press release\u003c/a>, AERA \u003ca href=\"https://www.aera.net/Newsroom/AERA-Files-Lawsuit-Against-Education-Department\">letter to members\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Future research. “IES has been critical to fostering research on what works, and what does not work, and for providing this information to schools so they can best prepare students for their future,” said Ellen Weiss, executive director of SREE. “Our graduate students are stalled in their work and upended in their progress toward a degree. Practitioners and policymakers also suffer great harm as they are left to drive decisions without the benefit of empirical data and high-quality research,” said Felice Levine, executive director of AERA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed April 29, accompanied by declarations from researchers on how their work is harmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003col start=\"3\">\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Legal Defense Fund suit\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs: National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys: Legal Defense Fund\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Defendants: The U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Date filed: April 24\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents: \u003ca href=\"https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/NAED-et-al-v-McMahon-et-al.pdf\">complaint\u003c/a>, LDF \u003ca href=\"https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/ldf-sues-u-s-department-of-education-on-behalf-of-education-research-organizations-over-discontinuation-of-critical-demographic-data-collection/\">press release\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A concern: Data quality. “The law requires not only data access but data quality,” said Andrew Ho, a Harvard University professor of education and former president of the National Council on Measurement in Education. “For 88 years, our organization has upheld standards for valid measurements and the research that depends on these measurements. We do so again today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed May 2.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>*Correction: This paragraph was corrected to make clear that lawyers in all three suits have asked the courts to temporarily reverse the research and data cuts and personnel firings.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-researchers-sue-trump/\">\u003cem>Education Department lawsuits\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As Education Secretary Linda McMahon was busy dismantling her cabinet department, she vowed to preserve one thing: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. In early April, she told a gathering of ed tech companies and investors that the national exam was “something we absolutely need to keep,” because it’s a “way that we keep everybody honest” about the truth of how much students across the country actually know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was clearly a promise with an asterisk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than two weeks later, on Monday of this week, substantial parts of NAEP came crumbling down when the board that oversees the exam reluctantly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nagb.gov/content/dam/nagb/en/documents/naep/Schedule-of-Assessments.pdf\">voted to kill\u003c/a> more than a dozen of the assessments that comprise the Nation’s Report Card over the next seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The main reading and math tests, which are required by Congress, were preserved. But to cut costs in an attempt to appease Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) scrapped a 2029 administration of the Long-Term Trend NAEP, an exam that has tracked student achievement since the 1970s.* Also cut were fourth grade science in 2028, 12th grade science in 2032 and 12th grade history in 2030. Writing assessments, which had been slated for 2032, were canceled entirely. State and local results were also dropped for an assortment of exams. For example, no state-level results will be reported for 12th grade reading and math in 2028, nor will there be district-level results for eighth grade science that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are recommendations that we are making with much pain,” said board chair Beverly Perdue, a former North Carolina governor who was appointed to this leadership role in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term. “None of us want to do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board didn’t provide an official explanation for its moves. But the vice chair, Martin West, a Harvard professor of education, said in an interview that the cuts were an effort to save the 2026 assessments. “A moment of reckoning came more quickly because of the pressures on the program to reduce expenses in real time,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the board was effectively cutting off the patient’s appendages to try to save the brain and the heart. Despite the sacrifice, it’s still not clear that the gambit will work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOGE has been demanding 50 percent cuts to the $190 million a year testing program. Nearly all the work is handled by outside contractors, such as Westat and ETS, and five-year contracts were awarded at the end of 2024. But instead of paying the vendors annually, DOGE has diced the payments into shorter increments, putting pressure on the contractors to accept sharp cuts, according to several former Education Department employees. At the moment, several of the contracts are scheduled to run out of money in May and June, and DOGE’s approval is needed to restart the flow of money. Indeed, DOGE allowed one NAEP contract to \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-naep-not-safe/\">run out of funds entirely on March 31\u003c/a>, forcing ETS employees to stop work on writing new questions for future exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading and math tests are scheduled to start being administered in schools in January 2026, and so additional disruptions could derail the main NAEP assessment altogether. NAEP is taken by a sample of 450,000 students who are selected to represent all the fourth and eighth graders in the nation, and each student only takes part of a test. This sampling approach avoids the burden of testing every child in the country, but it requires Education Department contractors to make complicated statistical calculations for the number of test takers and the number of test sections needed to produce valid and reliable results. Contractors must then package the test sections into virtual test booklets for students to take online. The Education Department also must get approval from the federal Office of Management and Budget to begin testing in schools — yet another set of paperwork that is handled by contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A DOGE dilemma \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>People familiar with the board’s deliberations were concerned that contractors might be pressured to agree to cuts that could harm the quality and the validity of the exam itself. Significant changes to the exam or its administration could make it impossible to compare student achievement with the 2024 results, potentially undermining the whole purpose of the assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board members were ultimately faced with a dilemma. They could cut corners on the full range of assessments or hope to maintain NAEP’s high quality with a much smaller basket of tests. They chose the latter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cuts were designed to comply with congressional mandates. While the Long-Term Trend assessment is required by Congress, the law does not state how frequently it must be administered, and so the governing board has deferred it until 2033. Many testing experts have questioned whether this exam has become redundant now that the main NAEP has a 35-year history of student performance. The board has discussed scrapping this exam since 2017. “The passage of time raises questions about its continued value,” said West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The writing assessments, originally scheduled for 2032 for grades four, eight and 12, needed an overhaul and that would have been an expensive, difficult process especially with current debates over what it means to teach writing in the age of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The loss of state- and district-level results for some exams, such as high school reading and math, were some of the more painful cuts. The ability to compare student achievement across state lines has been one of the most valuable aspects of the NAEP tests because the comparison can provide role models for other states and districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Cost cutting\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Everyone agrees that NAEP can be more efficient,” said West, who added that the board has been trying to cut costs for many years. But he said that it is tricky to test changes for future exams without jeopardizing the validity and the quality of the current exam. That dual path can sometimes add costs in the short term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was unclear how many millions of dollars the governing board saved with its assessment cancellations Monday, but the savings are certainly less than the 50 percent cut that DOGE is demanding. The biggest driver of the costs is the main NAEP test, which is being preserved. The contracts are awarded by task and not by assessment, and so the contractors have to come back with estimates of how much the cancellation of some exams will affect its expenses. For example, now that fourth grade science isn’t being administered in 2028, no questions need to be written for it. But field staff will still need to go to schools that year to administer tests, including reading and math, which haven’t been cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Compare old and new assessment schedules\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Outside observers decried the cuts on social media, with one education commentator saying the cancellations were “\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/karenvaites/status/1914415233533354024\">starting to cut into the muscle\u003c/a>.” Science and history, though not mandated by Congress, are important to many. ”We should care about how our schools are teaching students science,” said Allison Socol, who leads preschool to high school policy at EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for equity in education. “Any data point you look at shows that future careers will rely heavily on STEM skills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socol worries that DOGE will not be satisfied with the board’s cuts and demand more. “It’s just so much easier to destroy things than to build them,” she said. “And it’s very easy, once you’ve taken one thing away, to take another one and another one and another one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On April 17, the Education Department announced that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-releases-statement-2026-naep-schedule\">2026 NAEP would proceed\u003c/a> as planned. But after mass layoffs in March, it remained unclear if the department has the capacity to oversee the process, since only two employees with NAEP experience are left out of almost 30 who used to work on the test. McMahon might need to rehire some employees to pull it off, but new hiring would contradict the spirit of Trump’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/\">executive order to close the department\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socol fears that the Trump administration doesn’t really want to measure student achievement. “There is a very clear push from the administration, not just in the education sector, to have a lot less information about how our public institutions are serving the people in this country,” Socol said. “It is a lot easier to ignore inequality if you can’t see it, and that is the point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to my questions about their intentions for NAEP. McMahon has been quite forceful in articulating the value of the assessments, but she might not have the final say since DOGE has to approve the NAEP contracts. “What’s very clear is that the office of the secretary does not completely control the DOGE people,” said a person with knowledge of the dynamics inside the Education Department. “McMahon’s views affect DOGE priorities, but McMahon doesn’t have direct control at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ball is now in DOGE’s court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Correction: An earlier version of this sentence incorrectly said that two administrations of the Long-Term Trend NAEP had been scrapped by the governing board on April 21. Only the 2029 administration was canceled by the board. The 2025 Long-Term Trend NAEP for 17 year olds was canceled by the Education Department in February. Nine- and 13-year-old students had \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/TVnlCyPmRxs0pwZ3fZfJcxr3Ff?domain=nces.ed.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">already taken it\u003c/a> by April.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-smaller-naep/\">\u003cem>NAEP cuts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As Education Secretary Linda McMahon was busy dismantling her cabinet department, she vowed to preserve one thing: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. In early April, she told a gathering of ed tech companies and investors that the national exam was “something we absolutely need to keep,” because it’s a “way that we keep everybody honest” about the truth of how much students across the country actually know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was clearly a promise with an asterisk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than two weeks later, on Monday of this week, substantial parts of NAEP came crumbling down when the board that oversees the exam reluctantly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nagb.gov/content/dam/nagb/en/documents/naep/Schedule-of-Assessments.pdf\">voted to kill\u003c/a> more than a dozen of the assessments that comprise the Nation’s Report Card over the next seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The main reading and math tests, which are required by Congress, were preserved. But to cut costs in an attempt to appease Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) scrapped a 2029 administration of the Long-Term Trend NAEP, an exam that has tracked student achievement since the 1970s.* Also cut were fourth grade science in 2028, 12th grade science in 2032 and 12th grade history in 2030. Writing assessments, which had been slated for 2032, were canceled entirely. State and local results were also dropped for an assortment of exams. For example, no state-level results will be reported for 12th grade reading and math in 2028, nor will there be district-level results for eighth grade science that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are recommendations that we are making with much pain,” said board chair Beverly Perdue, a former North Carolina governor who was appointed to this leadership role in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term. “None of us want to do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board didn’t provide an official explanation for its moves. But the vice chair, Martin West, a Harvard professor of education, said in an interview that the cuts were an effort to save the 2026 assessments. “A moment of reckoning came more quickly because of the pressures on the program to reduce expenses in real time,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, the board was effectively cutting off the patient’s appendages to try to save the brain and the heart. Despite the sacrifice, it’s still not clear that the gambit will work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DOGE has been demanding 50 percent cuts to the $190 million a year testing program. Nearly all the work is handled by outside contractors, such as Westat and ETS, and five-year contracts were awarded at the end of 2024. But instead of paying the vendors annually, DOGE has diced the payments into shorter increments, putting pressure on the contractors to accept sharp cuts, according to several former Education Department employees. At the moment, several of the contracts are scheduled to run out of money in May and June, and DOGE’s approval is needed to restart the flow of money. Indeed, DOGE allowed one NAEP contract to \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-naep-not-safe/\">run out of funds entirely on March 31\u003c/a>, forcing ETS employees to stop work on writing new questions for future exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading and math tests are scheduled to start being administered in schools in January 2026, and so additional disruptions could derail the main NAEP assessment altogether. NAEP is taken by a sample of 450,000 students who are selected to represent all the fourth and eighth graders in the nation, and each student only takes part of a test. This sampling approach avoids the burden of testing every child in the country, but it requires Education Department contractors to make complicated statistical calculations for the number of test takers and the number of test sections needed to produce valid and reliable results. Contractors must then package the test sections into virtual test booklets for students to take online. The Education Department also must get approval from the federal Office of Management and Budget to begin testing in schools — yet another set of paperwork that is handled by contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A DOGE dilemma \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>People familiar with the board’s deliberations were concerned that contractors might be pressured to agree to cuts that could harm the quality and the validity of the exam itself. Significant changes to the exam or its administration could make it impossible to compare student achievement with the 2024 results, potentially undermining the whole purpose of the assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board members were ultimately faced with a dilemma. They could cut corners on the full range of assessments or hope to maintain NAEP’s high quality with a much smaller basket of tests. They chose the latter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cuts were designed to comply with congressional mandates. While the Long-Term Trend assessment is required by Congress, the law does not state how frequently it must be administered, and so the governing board has deferred it until 2033. Many testing experts have questioned whether this exam has become redundant now that the main NAEP has a 35-year history of student performance. The board has discussed scrapping this exam since 2017. “The passage of time raises questions about its continued value,” said West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The writing assessments, originally scheduled for 2032 for grades four, eight and 12, needed an overhaul and that would have been an expensive, difficult process especially with current debates over what it means to teach writing in the age of AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The loss of state- and district-level results for some exams, such as high school reading and math, were some of the more painful cuts. The ability to compare student achievement across state lines has been one of the most valuable aspects of the NAEP tests because the comparison can provide role models for other states and districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Cost cutting\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Everyone agrees that NAEP can be more efficient,” said West, who added that the board has been trying to cut costs for many years. But he said that it is tricky to test changes for future exams without jeopardizing the validity and the quality of the current exam. That dual path can sometimes add costs in the short term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was unclear how many millions of dollars the governing board saved with its assessment cancellations Monday, but the savings are certainly less than the 50 percent cut that DOGE is demanding. The biggest driver of the costs is the main NAEP test, which is being preserved. The contracts are awarded by task and not by assessment, and so the contractors have to come back with estimates of how much the cancellation of some exams will affect its expenses. For example, now that fourth grade science isn’t being administered in 2028, no questions need to be written for it. But field staff will still need to go to schools that year to administer tests, including reading and math, which haven’t been cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Compare old and new assessment schedules\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Outside observers decried the cuts on social media, with one education commentator saying the cancellations were “\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/karenvaites/status/1914415233533354024\">starting to cut into the muscle\u003c/a>.” Science and history, though not mandated by Congress, are important to many. ”We should care about how our schools are teaching students science,” said Allison Socol, who leads preschool to high school policy at EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for equity in education. “Any data point you look at shows that future careers will rely heavily on STEM skills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socol worries that DOGE will not be satisfied with the board’s cuts and demand more. “It’s just so much easier to destroy things than to build them,” she said. “And it’s very easy, once you’ve taken one thing away, to take another one and another one and another one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On April 17, the Education Department announced that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-releases-statement-2026-naep-schedule\">2026 NAEP would proceed\u003c/a> as planned. But after mass layoffs in March, it remained unclear if the department has the capacity to oversee the process, since only two employees with NAEP experience are left out of almost 30 who used to work on the test. McMahon might need to rehire some employees to pull it off, but new hiring would contradict the spirit of Trump’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/\">executive order to close the department\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Socol fears that the Trump administration doesn’t really want to measure student achievement. “There is a very clear push from the administration, not just in the education sector, to have a lot less information about how our public institutions are serving the people in this country,” Socol said. “It is a lot easier to ignore inequality if you can’t see it, and that is the point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to my questions about their intentions for NAEP. McMahon has been quite forceful in articulating the value of the assessments, but she might not have the final say since DOGE has to approve the NAEP contracts. “What’s very clear is that the office of the secretary does not completely control the DOGE people,” said a person with knowledge of the dynamics inside the Education Department. “McMahon’s views affect DOGE priorities, but McMahon doesn’t have direct control at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ball is now in DOGE’s court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Correction: An earlier version of this sentence incorrectly said that two administrations of the Long-Term Trend NAEP had been scrapped by the governing board on April 21. Only the 2029 administration was canceled by the board. The 2025 Long-Term Trend NAEP for 17 year olds was canceled by the Education Department in February. Nine- and 13-year-old students had \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/TVnlCyPmRxs0pwZ3fZfJcxr3Ff?domain=nces.ed.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">already taken it\u003c/a> by April.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-smaller-naep/\">\u003cem>NAEP cuts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When you’re looking for research on four-day school weeks or how to teach fractions, or trying to locate an historical document, such as the landmark Coleman Report of 1966, you might begin with Google. But the reason that high-quality research results pop up from your Google search is because something called ERIC exists behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/\">ERIC\u003c/a> stands for Education Resources Information Center and it is a curated online public library of 2.1 million educational documents that is funded and managed by the U.S. Education Department. The collection dates back to the 1960s and used to be circulated to libraries through microfiche. Today it’s an open access website where anyone can search, read online or download material. Neither a library card nor login credentials are needed. It is used by an estimated 14 million people a year. (I am one of them.) If you’re familiar with MedLine or PubMed for health care studies, this is the equivalent for the field of education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This critical online library catalog is supposed to continue operating under a five-year contract that runs through 2028. Initially, ERIC was spared from the department’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">mass contract cancellations\u003c/a> in February. But according to Erin Pollard Young, the sole Education Department employee who managed ERIC until her job was eliminated in March, the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has since refused to approve disbursement of money that has already been authorized by Congress for the upcoming year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ERIC is scheduled to run out of money on April 23. After that date, no new documents can be added. “The contract, from my understanding, would die,” Pollard Young said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After 60 years of gathering hard to find education literature and sharing it broadly, the website could stop being updated,” Pollard Young posted on LinkedIn. “Yes, the data are backed up in so many places, and the website will likely remain up for a while. But without constant curation and updating, so much information will be lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, teachers, researchers and education policymakers are all affected. “Defunding ERIC would limit public access to critical education research, hindering evidence-based practices and informed policy decisions vital for the advancement of American education,” emailed Gladys Cruz, a superintendent of a school district called Questar III BOCES outside of Albany, New York, and a past president of the AASA, The School Superintendents Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Proposal to halve the cost\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Pollard Young said that before she left the Education Department, she was frantically working to comply with a DOGE demand to slash ERIC’s annual budget by half, from $5.5 million to $2.25 million. The cuts were painful. She would have to cut 45 percent of the journals added to the database each year. The public help desk would be eliminated. And Pollard Young had agreed to personally take on the extra task of directly communicating with 1,500 publishers, something that had been handled by AEM Education Services, a vendor that collects, analyzes and manages data for the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These proposed cuts did not satisfy DOGE. Pollard Young said she received an email reply in all caps, “THIS IS NOT APPROVED,” with a request for more information. Pollard Young submitted the additional information but never received a response. She lost access to her work email about a week later on March 11, the day that Pollard Young and more than 1,300 other Education Department employees lost their jobs in a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">mass firing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pollard Young was the only Education Department employee who was involved with ERIC on a daily basis. She oversaw a team of 30 contractors at AEM Education Services, which did most of the work. Adding documents to the digital library involves many steps, from determining their importance to cataloging and indexing them. It is the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/why-cant-you-just-use-google-instead-eric\">metadata\u003c/a>, or descriptive tags, that AEM inserts behind the scenes that allows documents on ERIC to be discoverable and rise to the top on Google searches. But the public can also search directly on the ERIC website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fun fact,” Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that advocates for data-driven decision making in schools, posted on LinkedIn. “Over the 20 years that DQC has been around we’ve had some poorly designed websites with atrocious search functions. I often couldn’t find resources I wrote! But could always find them on ERIC. Huge resource.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bulk of the collection consists of academic journal articles. Many are full text PDFs that would otherwise be inaccessible behind paywalls. ERIC also contains books, federal, state and local government reports and doctoral dissertations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Gray literature\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One of its gems is the large amount of “gray literature,” which Pollard Young described as unpublished studies from private research organizations and school district reports that are not cataloged in EBSCO, a private database of academic documents. That’s another reason that \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/why-cant-you-just-use-google-instead-eric\">Google and AI cannot simply replace this curated ERIC collection\u003c/a>. “In education so much research is produced outside of journals,” said Pollard Young. “Big, important RCTs [randomized controlled trials] are in white papers,” or special reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to specific questions about the future of ERIC, the Education Department responded more broadly about the need to restructure the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), where ERIC is managed. “Despite spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds annually, IES has failed to effectively fulfill its mandate to identify best practices and new approaches that improve educational outcomes and close achievement gaps for students,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications, in an emailed statement. “The Department is actively evaluating how to restructure IES with input from existing leadership and expert stakeholders so that the Institute provides states with more useful data to improve student outcomes while maintaining rigorous scientific integrity and cost effectiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is still possible that DOGE will approve the reduced budget proposal this week before the money runs out. But there will be no one at the Education Department to oversee it or communicate with publishers. “Best case scenario, ERIC operates at half of its budget,” Pollard Young posted on LinkedIn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other Education Department employees who were fired in March, Pollard Young is on administrative leave until June. But she said she is willing to risk potential retaliation from the administration and speak on the record about the threat to ERIC, which she had managed for more than a dozen years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am aware of what some of the consequences are,” said Pollard Young. “But to me, it is important for the field to know that I am doing everything in my power to save ERIC and also for the country to understand what is happening. As I’m talking to people across the country, it is clear that they don’t fully understand what is happening in D.C. Hopefully we can put some pressure on it so we can keep the funding or bring it back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-eric-under-threat/\">\u003cem>ERIC\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information Center Education Resources Information CenterEducation Resources Information Center\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When you’re looking for research on four-day school weeks or how to teach fractions, or trying to locate an historical document, such as the landmark Coleman Report of 1966, you might begin with Google. But the reason that high-quality research results pop up from your Google search is because something called ERIC exists behind the scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/\">ERIC\u003c/a> stands for Education Resources Information Center and it is a curated online public library of 2.1 million educational documents that is funded and managed by the U.S. Education Department. The collection dates back to the 1960s and used to be circulated to libraries through microfiche. Today it’s an open access website where anyone can search, read online or download material. Neither a library card nor login credentials are needed. It is used by an estimated 14 million people a year. (I am one of them.) If you’re familiar with MedLine or PubMed for health care studies, this is the equivalent for the field of education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This critical online library catalog is supposed to continue operating under a five-year contract that runs through 2028. Initially, ERIC was spared from the department’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">mass contract cancellations\u003c/a> in February. But according to Erin Pollard Young, the sole Education Department employee who managed ERIC until her job was eliminated in March, the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has since refused to approve disbursement of money that has already been authorized by Congress for the upcoming year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ERIC is scheduled to run out of money on April 23. After that date, no new documents can be added. “The contract, from my understanding, would die,” Pollard Young said in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After 60 years of gathering hard to find education literature and sharing it broadly, the website could stop being updated,” Pollard Young posted on LinkedIn. “Yes, the data are backed up in so many places, and the website will likely remain up for a while. But without constant curation and updating, so much information will be lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, teachers, researchers and education policymakers are all affected. “Defunding ERIC would limit public access to critical education research, hindering evidence-based practices and informed policy decisions vital for the advancement of American education,” emailed Gladys Cruz, a superintendent of a school district called Questar III BOCES outside of Albany, New York, and a past president of the AASA, The School Superintendents Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Proposal to halve the cost\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Pollard Young said that before she left the Education Department, she was frantically working to comply with a DOGE demand to slash ERIC’s annual budget by half, from $5.5 million to $2.25 million. The cuts were painful. She would have to cut 45 percent of the journals added to the database each year. The public help desk would be eliminated. And Pollard Young had agreed to personally take on the extra task of directly communicating with 1,500 publishers, something that had been handled by AEM Education Services, a vendor that collects, analyzes and manages data for the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These proposed cuts did not satisfy DOGE. Pollard Young said she received an email reply in all caps, “THIS IS NOT APPROVED,” with a request for more information. Pollard Young submitted the additional information but never received a response. She lost access to her work email about a week later on March 11, the day that Pollard Young and more than 1,300 other Education Department employees lost their jobs in a \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">mass firing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pollard Young was the only Education Department employee who was involved with ERIC on a daily basis. She oversaw a team of 30 contractors at AEM Education Services, which did most of the work. Adding documents to the digital library involves many steps, from determining their importance to cataloging and indexing them. It is the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/why-cant-you-just-use-google-instead-eric\">metadata\u003c/a>, or descriptive tags, that AEM inserts behind the scenes that allows documents on ERIC to be discoverable and rise to the top on Google searches. But the public can also search directly on the ERIC website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fun fact,” Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that advocates for data-driven decision making in schools, posted on LinkedIn. “Over the 20 years that DQC has been around we’ve had some poorly designed websites with atrocious search functions. I often couldn’t find resources I wrote! But could always find them on ERIC. Huge resource.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bulk of the collection consists of academic journal articles. Many are full text PDFs that would otherwise be inaccessible behind paywalls. ERIC also contains books, federal, state and local government reports and doctoral dissertations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Gray literature\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One of its gems is the large amount of “gray literature,” which Pollard Young described as unpublished studies from private research organizations and school district reports that are not cataloged in EBSCO, a private database of academic documents. That’s another reason that \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/why-cant-you-just-use-google-instead-eric\">Google and AI cannot simply replace this curated ERIC collection\u003c/a>. “In education so much research is produced outside of journals,” said Pollard Young. “Big, important RCTs [randomized controlled trials] are in white papers,” or special reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to specific questions about the future of ERIC, the Education Department responded more broadly about the need to restructure the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), where ERIC is managed. “Despite spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds annually, IES has failed to effectively fulfill its mandate to identify best practices and new approaches that improve educational outcomes and close achievement gaps for students,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications, in an emailed statement. “The Department is actively evaluating how to restructure IES with input from existing leadership and expert stakeholders so that the Institute provides states with more useful data to improve student outcomes while maintaining rigorous scientific integrity and cost effectiveness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is still possible that DOGE will approve the reduced budget proposal this week before the money runs out. But there will be no one at the Education Department to oversee it or communicate with publishers. “Best case scenario, ERIC operates at half of its budget,” Pollard Young posted on LinkedIn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like other Education Department employees who were fired in March, Pollard Young is on administrative leave until June. But she said she is willing to risk potential retaliation from the administration and speak on the record about the threat to ERIC, which she had managed for more than a dozen years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am aware of what some of the consequences are,” said Pollard Young. “But to me, it is important for the field to know that I am doing everything in my power to save ERIC and also for the country to understand what is happening. As I’m talking to people across the country, it is clear that they don’t fully understand what is happening in D.C. Hopefully we can put some pressure on it so we can keep the funding or bring it back.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 changed the world. A chatbot could instantly write paragraphs and papers, a task once thought to be uniquely human. Though it may take many years to understand the full consequences, a team of data scientists wanted to study how college writing might already be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers were able to gain access to all the online discussion board comments submitted by college students at an unidentified large public university before and after ChatGPT to compare how student writing quality changed. These are typically low-stakes homework assignments where a professor might ask students to post their thoughts on a reading assignment in, say, psychology or biology. The posts could be as short as a sentence or as long as a few paragraphs, but not full essays or papers. These short homework assignments are often ungraded or loosely factored into a student’s class participation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists didn’t actually read all 1,140,328 discussion-board submissions written by 16,791 students between the fall term of 2021 and the winter term of 2024. As specialists in analyzing big data sets, the researchers fed the posts into seven different computer models that analyze writing quality, from vocabulary to syntax to readability. Ultimately, they created a single composite index of writing quality in which all the submissions were ranked on this single yardstick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results? Overall student writing quality improved. The improvement was slow at first in the early months of 2023 and then it improved substantially from October 2023 until the study period ended in March 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we can infer this is due to the availability of AI because what other things would produce these significant changes?” said Renzhe Yu, an assistant professor of educational data mining at Teachers College, Columbia University, who led the research. Yu’s paper has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but a \u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.22282\">draft\u003c/a> has been publicly posted on a website at Cornell University that hosts pre-publication drafts of scholarly work. (\u003cem>The Hechinger Report is an independent news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yu and his research colleagues didn’t interview any of the students and cannot say for certain that the students were using ChatGPT or any of its competitors, such as Claude or Gemini, to help them with their assignments. But the improvement in student writing following the introduction of ChatGPT does seem to be more than just a random coincidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Big upswings for international students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The unidentified university is a minority serving institution with a large number of Hispanic students who were raised speaking Spanish at home and a large number of international students who are non-native English speakers. And it was these students, whom the researchers classified as “linguistically disadvantaged,” who saw the biggest upswings in writing quality after the advent of ChatGPT. Students who entered college with weak writing skills, a metric that the university tracks, also saw outsized gains in their writing quality after ChatGPT. Meanwhile, stronger English speakers and those who entered college with stronger writing abilities saw smaller improvements in their writing quality. It’s unclear if they’re using ChatGPT less, or if the bot offers less dramatic improvement for a student who is already writing fairly well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gains for “linguistically disadvantaged” students were so strong after the fall of 2023 that the gap in writing quality between these students and stronger English speakers completely evaporated and sometimes reversed. In other words, the writing quality for students who didn’t speak English at home and those who entered college with weak writing skills was sometimes even stronger than that of students who were raised speaking English at home and those who entered college with stronger writing abilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Gains concentrated among high-income students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>However, these gains in writing quality among the “linguistically disadvantaged” were concentrated among higher income students. The researchers were able to match students’ writing submissions with administrative data on students, including their family income, and they noticed that the writing of low-income students whose parents did not attend college didn’t improve quite so much. By contrast, the writing of high-income international students with college educated parents transformed markedly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a sign that low-income students weren’t using ChatGPT quite so much or not as effectively. Socioeconomic differences in how students benefit from technology aren’t uncommon. \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/online-writing-tests-widen-achievement-gap/\">Previous studies\u003c/a> of word processing software, for example, have found that higher income students tend to be more facile in taking advantage of editing features and see greater writing benefits from the ability to cut and paste and move text around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Warschauer is a professor of education at University of California, Irvine, and director of its \u003ca href=\"http://www.digitallearninglab.org/\">Digital Learning Lab\u003c/a>, where he studies the use of technology in education. Warschauer was not involved with this study and he said he suspects that the lopsided benefits for higher income students will be fleeting as low-income students become more acclimated and more facile with AI over time. “We often see with new technologies that high-income people get access first, but then it balances out. I believe that low-income people use cell phones and social media as much as high income people in the U.S.,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he predicts that the substantial and larger improvements in writing for international students, far greater than for domestic students, will be “more important and durable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, this improved writing quality doesn’t mean that these international students are actually learning to write better, but it does indicate that they’re adept at using technology to present ideas in well-written English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study’s researchers didn’t analyze the ideas, the quality of analysis or if the student submissions made any sense. And it’s unclear if the students fed the reading into the chatbot along with the professor’s question and simply copied and pasted the chatbot’s answer into the discussion board, or if students actually did the reading themselves, typed out some preliminary ideas and just asked the chatbot to polish their writing\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Yu’s own classes at Teachers College, he said he encourages students to use ChatGPT in their writing assignments as long as they acknowledge it and also submit transcripts of their conversations with the AI chatbot. In practice, he said, only a few students admit to using it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noticed that student writing in his classes had been improving until now. “This year has actually been horrible,” he said. More and more of his students have been submitting typical AI output that “seems reasonable but doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all comes down to motivation,” said Yu. “If they’re not motivated to learn, then students will only make a bad use of whatever the technology is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-international-students-chatgpt/\">\u003cem>ChatGPT writing\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 changed the world. A chatbot could instantly write paragraphs and papers, a task once thought to be uniquely human. Though it may take many years to understand the full consequences, a team of data scientists wanted to study how college writing might already be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers were able to gain access to all the online discussion board comments submitted by college students at an unidentified large public university before and after ChatGPT to compare how student writing quality changed. These are typically low-stakes homework assignments where a professor might ask students to post their thoughts on a reading assignment in, say, psychology or biology. The posts could be as short as a sentence or as long as a few paragraphs, but not full essays or papers. These short homework assignments are often ungraded or loosely factored into a student’s class participation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists didn’t actually read all 1,140,328 discussion-board submissions written by 16,791 students between the fall term of 2021 and the winter term of 2024. As specialists in analyzing big data sets, the researchers fed the posts into seven different computer models that analyze writing quality, from vocabulary to syntax to readability. Ultimately, they created a single composite index of writing quality in which all the submissions were ranked on this single yardstick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results? Overall student writing quality improved. The improvement was slow at first in the early months of 2023 and then it improved substantially from October 2023 until the study period ended in March 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we can infer this is due to the availability of AI because what other things would produce these significant changes?” said Renzhe Yu, an assistant professor of educational data mining at Teachers College, Columbia University, who led the research. Yu’s paper has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but a \u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.22282\">draft\u003c/a> has been publicly posted on a website at Cornell University that hosts pre-publication drafts of scholarly work. (\u003cem>The Hechinger Report is an independent news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yu and his research colleagues didn’t interview any of the students and cannot say for certain that the students were using ChatGPT or any of its competitors, such as Claude or Gemini, to help them with their assignments. But the improvement in student writing following the introduction of ChatGPT does seem to be more than just a random coincidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Big upswings for international students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The unidentified university is a minority serving institution with a large number of Hispanic students who were raised speaking Spanish at home and a large number of international students who are non-native English speakers. And it was these students, whom the researchers classified as “linguistically disadvantaged,” who saw the biggest upswings in writing quality after the advent of ChatGPT. Students who entered college with weak writing skills, a metric that the university tracks, also saw outsized gains in their writing quality after ChatGPT. Meanwhile, stronger English speakers and those who entered college with stronger writing abilities saw smaller improvements in their writing quality. It’s unclear if they’re using ChatGPT less, or if the bot offers less dramatic improvement for a student who is already writing fairly well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gains for “linguistically disadvantaged” students were so strong after the fall of 2023 that the gap in writing quality between these students and stronger English speakers completely evaporated and sometimes reversed. In other words, the writing quality for students who didn’t speak English at home and those who entered college with weak writing skills was sometimes even stronger than that of students who were raised speaking English at home and those who entered college with stronger writing abilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Gains concentrated among high-income students\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>However, these gains in writing quality among the “linguistically disadvantaged” were concentrated among higher income students. The researchers were able to match students’ writing submissions with administrative data on students, including their family income, and they noticed that the writing of low-income students whose parents did not attend college didn’t improve quite so much. By contrast, the writing of high-income international students with college educated parents transformed markedly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a sign that low-income students weren’t using ChatGPT quite so much or not as effectively. Socioeconomic differences in how students benefit from technology aren’t uncommon. \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/online-writing-tests-widen-achievement-gap/\">Previous studies\u003c/a> of word processing software, for example, have found that higher income students tend to be more facile in taking advantage of editing features and see greater writing benefits from the ability to cut and paste and move text around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Warschauer is a professor of education at University of California, Irvine, and director of its \u003ca href=\"http://www.digitallearninglab.org/\">Digital Learning Lab\u003c/a>, where he studies the use of technology in education. Warschauer was not involved with this study and he said he suspects that the lopsided benefits for higher income students will be fleeting as low-income students become more acclimated and more facile with AI over time. “We often see with new technologies that high-income people get access first, but then it balances out. I believe that low-income people use cell phones and social media as much as high income people in the U.S.,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he predicts that the substantial and larger improvements in writing for international students, far greater than for domestic students, will be “more important and durable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, this improved writing quality doesn’t mean that these international students are actually learning to write better, but it does indicate that they’re adept at using technology to present ideas in well-written English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study’s researchers didn’t analyze the ideas, the quality of analysis or if the student submissions made any sense. And it’s unclear if the students fed the reading into the chatbot along with the professor’s question and simply copied and pasted the chatbot’s answer into the discussion board, or if students actually did the reading themselves, typed out some preliminary ideas and just asked the chatbot to polish their writing\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Yu’s own classes at Teachers College, he said he encourages students to use ChatGPT in their writing assignments as long as they acknowledge it and also submit transcripts of their conversations with the AI chatbot. In practice, he said, only a few students admit to using it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noticed that student writing in his classes had been improving until now. “This year has actually been horrible,” he said. More and more of his students have been submitting typical AI output that “seems reasonable but doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all comes down to motivation,” said Yu. “If they’re not motivated to learn, then students will only make a bad use of whatever the technology is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or \u003c/em>\u003cem>barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-international-students-chatgpt/\">\u003cem>ChatGPT writing\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In this era of extreme partisan divide, there’s very little that unites conservatives and liberals. But both sides have long backed the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is also called the Nation’s Report Card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now even this test, touted as the “gold standard” among all assessments, is in jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mass layoffs, funding disruptions, and threats of future steep cuts are worrying those who are aware of the inner workings of the NAEP test. “It’s a very delicate instrument,” said conservative education commentator Chester Finn, who formerly chaired the governing board that oversees the assessment. “Risky things are happening. It’s going from bad to worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Influential state policymakers are also sounding the alarm. “I am worried that NAEP is not going to happen,” said Maryland Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright, who ran Mississippi’s education department until 2022 and served on the governing board of the national assessment. “I’m concerned the congressional mandate will be ignored.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress requires that NAEP assess the reading and math abilities of fourth and eighth graders every two years, with the next administration scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2026. It is the only nationally representative assessment of what American students know. And because of its design, it is the only way to measure academic achievement of students over time, between rich and poor, and across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without NAEP, we would not be so painfully aware of pandemic learning losses and how children cannot read and multiply nearly as well as they could in 2019, nor would other states be looking to copy the Mississippi miracle in which the state skyrocketed from \u003ca href=\"https://oxfordeagle.com/2025/01/30/mississippi-4th-graders-no-1-in-the-nation-for-naep-gains-over-time/\">49th in the nation in fourth-grade reading\u003c/a> to ninth in just a decade. Indeed, the disastrous 2024 NAEP scores are President Donald Trump’s main justification for closing the Education Department in his March 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/\">executive order\u003c/a>. Without NAEP, there would be no evidence of failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administering a test might seem like a simple task from the outside. After all, teachers create and give tests every day. But under the hood, NAEP is quite complicated with a series of actions that have to happen by different deadlines to create the questions; review them for validity, reliability and bias; select the students who will be tested and administer the exam to them, and finally to analyze results with statistical precision. Minor delays and cuts can have big consequences. “It’s like Jenga,” said one former education official. “If you take out something, the whole thing can crumble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The threat to NAEP began with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in February. DOGE’s cost cutters slashed \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">research and statistics contracts\u003c/a> at the Education Department, but a spokeswoman emphasized that no cuts had been made to contracts for NAEP. While it seemed that NAEP had been spared, there were already warning signs. Data that the test relies on was cancelled. Without data on student demographics and poverty, statisticians would be unable to create nationally representative samples of students to take the NAEP test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, behind the scenes, the Education Department began to chip away at NAEP directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rigorous external analysis scrapped\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In February, an \u003ca href=\"https://www.air.org/project/naep-validity-studies-nvs-panel\">expert panel that studies the validity\u003c/a> of the NAEP exam was told to stop working because funding had been cut off by the Education Department, according to panel members. This panel maintains the rigorous quality of the exam by studying whether the questions on the tests are measuring the skills we care about and if the scores can be trusted. Jack Buckley, a former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, chaired this NAEP validity studies panel and said it had been meeting weekly until mid-February.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Non-core NAEP tests under threat\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NAEP comprises a large basket of tests beyond the main tests in math and reading for fourth and eighth graders, which began in the early 1990s. There are also older NAEP tests that date back to 1969, which have been renamed “long-term trend” tests. Days after the DOGE contract cuts, the Education Department scrapped the long-term trend NAEP for 17-year-olds, which had been scheduled to be administered this year. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nagb.gov/naep/the-naep-law.html\">law\u003c/a> specifies that NAEP’s long-term trend assessments must continue for students aged 9, 13 and 17 but does not specify how frequently. Some state education officials and researchers worried that the cancellation would lead to the elimination of other NAEP tests in history, civics and science, which are not required by Congress. “These things are all important for a well-rounded education,” said one state education official, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Funding pauses for administering and writing the exam\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Outside contractors perform most of the work to create and administer the exam. That’s why it was alarming in late winter when state education officials heard that funding was halted for the contract with Westat, a private data collection firm, to select the representative sample of students who take the test and then to administer it in schools. That funding resumed a couple weeks later in March, according to former Education Department officials. Westat denied that there was any pause in the funding, and says the work is still funded through June. But the rumors alarmed state officials. As of last week, Maryland officials were not informed that this work had resumed and thought it was still on hold. “There’s a lot of confusion,” said an assessment administrator in another state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding and work also temporarily stopped on the \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/dba/\">digital platform\u003c/a> that students use to take the exam and teachers and school administrators use to fill out survey questionnaires, according to four people with knowledge of the situation who did not want to be identified because they feared repercussions. Like all software, it needs constant maintenance, upgrades and security patches. But the timing was particularly worrisome as the digital test will be administered differently in 2026. Instead of NAEP bringing devices to the schools, preloaded with the testing software, students will be taking the test on school computers. Extra work must be completed to make sure schools can log in without glitches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contractor building this platform, ETS, gave DOGE a demonstration of its features last week. But according to former education officials, DOGE staffers are seeking additional places to cut costs and were less than impressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The digital platform is also needed to complete behind-the-scenes paperwork for states to participate in the 2026 assessment. Those steps are supposed to be completed in May. As it stands now, funding for the digital platform runs out again in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to inquiries to explain its plan for NAEP and the reason for the funding cuts. According to former education officials, the cuts are partly related to the budget battles in Washington that left the Education Department with only limited funding through mid-March, when a shutdown was looming. Once Congress funded the government through Sept. 30, fresh funds became available, but vendors didn’t receive the money right away. It’s unclear if these delays were intentional and a tactic to pressure vendors to make cost concessions or a result of the mass firings at the Education Department in March that left insufficient staff to process the new funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>State coordinator uncertainty\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While test administration and technology was suspended, funding for the NAEP state coordinators threatened to run out at the end of March. State education officials were anxious about losing these critical jobs, which coordinate testing in schools across their states and handle data sharing agreements with Washington. “We were sweating bullets,” said one education official in a Republican-controlled state who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation. The official would have had to lay off this vital staffer. Funds finally came through on March 27, but the budget had been reduced: state coordinators will no longer meet for data workshops to help them understand and explain the results to education officials and the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While those state jobs were saved, funding ran out on March 31 for an even more critical task: the creation of the NAEP exams, according to four people who had direct knowledge of this paused contract. That “content development” work is carried out by ETS, and the nonprofit testing organization told its employees who oversee the writing and review of NAEP test questions to take a leave until funding resumes. Questions still need to be packaged into 30-minute sections for the 2026 NAEP tests, and fresh questions need to be written and field tested for future exams on science and 12th grade math and reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Budget cuts on the horizon\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More drastic budget cuts loom. DOGE is actively seeking to slash the size of all the Education Department contracts that it did not \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">terminate in February\u003c/a>. There are roughly 10 major contracts for NAEP and all of the contractors are being asked to propose ways to cut costs. DOGE is aggressively negotiating with vendors, according to former Education Department employees. Vendors have submitted and resubmitted cost-cutting proposals, but, so far, DOGE staffers are not satisfied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the Education Department bureaucracy, NAEP is housed within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which handles research and statistics. Former IES director Mark Schneider, who is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he had heard that DOGE initially sought a 75 percent cut, and then 50 percent cut to the contracts for NAEP, which costs more than $190 million a year. DOGE has questioned why the federal government needs to create an expensive, custom-tailored test and why it cannot replace it with a commercial “off the shelf” exam from another company, several former Education Department employees said. Testing experts told me that no high-quality commercial exam exists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, a new test would make it impossible to compare future results with past scores. If scores go up, it could be because the new test is easier, not because student achievement improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be sure, $190 million a year for a test is a lot of money. And everyone I talked with said that the process could be more efficient. A \u003ca href=\"https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26427/Highlights-Pragmatic-Future-for-NAEP.pdf\">2022 report from the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/a> suggested that efficiencies and updated technology could reduce costs, while maintaining rigorous quality standards. But it would be impossible to preserve the quality if DOGE gets its way with a sudden 50 percent cost reduction, Wright said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Oversight\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">mass firings\u003c/a> of federal employees at the Education Department in March, just two people who were involved with NAEP remained. Only one of them has experience managing contracts with outside vendors. Before the mass firings, Education Department employees would check in with their vendors daily and spend hours in meetings with them every week, helping to make decisions when complications came up, such as not being able to recruit enough students for field testing new questions. Now, the sole remaining contract overseer is responsible for not just NAEP but all of the contracts for statistical collections. She has no more than 10 minutes a week for each vendor, former education employees said. “When you don’t have these bodies, you can run into errors,” said Wright. “You need to monitor this work day in and day out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone is worried. Erika Donalds is a close ally of Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Donalds runs the Center for Education Opportunity at the right-wing think tank, American First Policy Institute. She expressed confidence that McMahon would preserve NAEP, which Donalds characterized as “valuable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t have the same level of heartburn right now,” said Donalds. “I have confidence in the team and in their understanding of the importance of the continuity of information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Lobbying behind the scenes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Anxiety about NAEP was discussed at an April 2 webinar by the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit that advises states on their annual tests. According to Juan D’Brot, a senior associate at the center, many state education chiefs and their staff were in Washington in March for the legislative conference of Council of Chief State School Officers. “From what we learned, many advocated for both the role of NAEP and the importance of credible, high-stakes assessments directly to the Department of Education,” he wrote in the webinar chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other supporters of the test are making their case in the media. William Bennett, education secretary under former President Ronald Reagan, penned an \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/an-open-letter-to-linda-mcmahon/\">open letter\u003c/a> along with conservative commentator Chester Finn in The 74, urging McMahon to preserve NAEP, calling it “the single most important activity of the department.” Then Bennett teamed up with Lamar Alexander, the education secretary under former President George H.W. Bush, with an \u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/william-bennett-lamar-alexander-we-both-ran-education-dept-3-things-keep\">opinion piece\u003c/a> on the Fox News website that said NAEP was chief among the three most important functions at the Education Department that should be preserved. David Winston, a Republican consultant who worked for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://rollcall.com/2025/03/26/whatever-happens-to-the-education-department-preserve-naep/\">piece\u003c/a> in Roll Call, headlined “We must protect NAEP.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear if anyone in the Education Department is listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-naep-not-safe/\">\u003cem>future of NAEP\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In this era of extreme partisan divide, there’s very little that unites conservatives and liberals. But both sides have long backed the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is also called the Nation’s Report Card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now even this test, touted as the “gold standard” among all assessments, is in jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mass layoffs, funding disruptions, and threats of future steep cuts are worrying those who are aware of the inner workings of the NAEP test. “It’s a very delicate instrument,” said conservative education commentator Chester Finn, who formerly chaired the governing board that oversees the assessment. “Risky things are happening. It’s going from bad to worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Influential state policymakers are also sounding the alarm. “I am worried that NAEP is not going to happen,” said Maryland Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright, who ran Mississippi’s education department until 2022 and served on the governing board of the national assessment. “I’m concerned the congressional mandate will be ignored.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress requires that NAEP assess the reading and math abilities of fourth and eighth graders every two years, with the next administration scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2026. It is the only nationally representative assessment of what American students know. And because of its design, it is the only way to measure academic achievement of students over time, between rich and poor, and across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without NAEP, we would not be so painfully aware of pandemic learning losses and how children cannot read and multiply nearly as well as they could in 2019, nor would other states be looking to copy the Mississippi miracle in which the state skyrocketed from \u003ca href=\"https://oxfordeagle.com/2025/01/30/mississippi-4th-graders-no-1-in-the-nation-for-naep-gains-over-time/\">49th in the nation in fourth-grade reading\u003c/a> to ninth in just a decade. Indeed, the disastrous 2024 NAEP scores are President Donald Trump’s main justification for closing the Education Department in his March 2025 \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/\">executive order\u003c/a>. Without NAEP, there would be no evidence of failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administering a test might seem like a simple task from the outside. After all, teachers create and give tests every day. But under the hood, NAEP is quite complicated with a series of actions that have to happen by different deadlines to create the questions; review them for validity, reliability and bias; select the students who will be tested and administer the exam to them, and finally to analyze results with statistical precision. Minor delays and cuts can have big consequences. “It’s like Jenga,” said one former education official. “If you take out something, the whole thing can crumble.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The threat to NAEP began with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in February. DOGE’s cost cutters slashed \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">research and statistics contracts\u003c/a> at the Education Department, but a spokeswoman emphasized that no cuts had been made to contracts for NAEP. While it seemed that NAEP had been spared, there were already warning signs. Data that the test relies on was cancelled. Without data on student demographics and poverty, statisticians would be unable to create nationally representative samples of students to take the NAEP test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, behind the scenes, the Education Department began to chip away at NAEP directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rigorous external analysis scrapped\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In February, an \u003ca href=\"https://www.air.org/project/naep-validity-studies-nvs-panel\">expert panel that studies the validity\u003c/a> of the NAEP exam was told to stop working because funding had been cut off by the Education Department, according to panel members. This panel maintains the rigorous quality of the exam by studying whether the questions on the tests are measuring the skills we care about and if the scores can be trusted. Jack Buckley, a former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, chaired this NAEP validity studies panel and said it had been meeting weekly until mid-February.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Non-core NAEP tests under threat\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NAEP comprises a large basket of tests beyond the main tests in math and reading for fourth and eighth graders, which began in the early 1990s. There are also older NAEP tests that date back to 1969, which have been renamed “long-term trend” tests. Days after the DOGE contract cuts, the Education Department scrapped the long-term trend NAEP for 17-year-olds, which had been scheduled to be administered this year. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.nagb.gov/naep/the-naep-law.html\">law\u003c/a> specifies that NAEP’s long-term trend assessments must continue for students aged 9, 13 and 17 but does not specify how frequently. Some state education officials and researchers worried that the cancellation would lead to the elimination of other NAEP tests in history, civics and science, which are not required by Congress. “These things are all important for a well-rounded education,” said one state education official, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Funding pauses for administering and writing the exam\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Outside contractors perform most of the work to create and administer the exam. That’s why it was alarming in late winter when state education officials heard that funding was halted for the contract with Westat, a private data collection firm, to select the representative sample of students who take the test and then to administer it in schools. That funding resumed a couple weeks later in March, according to former Education Department officials. Westat denied that there was any pause in the funding, and says the work is still funded through June. But the rumors alarmed state officials. As of last week, Maryland officials were not informed that this work had resumed and thought it was still on hold. “There’s a lot of confusion,” said an assessment administrator in another state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding and work also temporarily stopped on the \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/dba/\">digital platform\u003c/a> that students use to take the exam and teachers and school administrators use to fill out survey questionnaires, according to four people with knowledge of the situation who did not want to be identified because they feared repercussions. Like all software, it needs constant maintenance, upgrades and security patches. But the timing was particularly worrisome as the digital test will be administered differently in 2026. Instead of NAEP bringing devices to the schools, preloaded with the testing software, students will be taking the test on school computers. Extra work must be completed to make sure schools can log in without glitches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The contractor building this platform, ETS, gave DOGE a demonstration of its features last week. But according to former education officials, DOGE staffers are seeking additional places to cut costs and were less than impressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The digital platform is also needed to complete behind-the-scenes paperwork for states to participate in the 2026 assessment. Those steps are supposed to be completed in May. As it stands now, funding for the digital platform runs out again in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Education Department did not respond to inquiries to explain its plan for NAEP and the reason for the funding cuts. According to former education officials, the cuts are partly related to the budget battles in Washington that left the Education Department with only limited funding through mid-March, when a shutdown was looming. Once Congress funded the government through Sept. 30, fresh funds became available, but vendors didn’t receive the money right away. It’s unclear if these delays were intentional and a tactic to pressure vendors to make cost concessions or a result of the mass firings at the Education Department in March that left insufficient staff to process the new funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>State coordinator uncertainty\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While test administration and technology was suspended, funding for the NAEP state coordinators threatened to run out at the end of March. State education officials were anxious about losing these critical jobs, which coordinate testing in schools across their states and handle data sharing agreements with Washington. “We were sweating bullets,” said one education official in a Republican-controlled state who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation. The official would have had to lay off this vital staffer. Funds finally came through on March 27, but the budget had been reduced: state coordinators will no longer meet for data workshops to help them understand and explain the results to education officials and the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While those state jobs were saved, funding ran out on March 31 for an even more critical task: the creation of the NAEP exams, according to four people who had direct knowledge of this paused contract. That “content development” work is carried out by ETS, and the nonprofit testing organization told its employees who oversee the writing and review of NAEP test questions to take a leave until funding resumes. Questions still need to be packaged into 30-minute sections for the 2026 NAEP tests, and fresh questions need to be written and field tested for future exams on science and 12th grade math and reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Budget cuts on the horizon\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More drastic budget cuts loom. DOGE is actively seeking to slash the size of all the Education Department contracts that it did not \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">terminate in February\u003c/a>. There are roughly 10 major contracts for NAEP and all of the contractors are being asked to propose ways to cut costs. DOGE is aggressively negotiating with vendors, according to former Education Department employees. Vendors have submitted and resubmitted cost-cutting proposals, but, so far, DOGE staffers are not satisfied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the Education Department bureaucracy, NAEP is housed within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which handles research and statistics. Former IES director Mark Schneider, who is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he had heard that DOGE initially sought a 75 percent cut, and then 50 percent cut to the contracts for NAEP, which costs more than $190 million a year. DOGE has questioned why the federal government needs to create an expensive, custom-tailored test and why it cannot replace it with a commercial “off the shelf” exam from another company, several former Education Department employees said. Testing experts told me that no high-quality commercial exam exists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, a new test would make it impossible to compare future results with past scores. If scores go up, it could be because the new test is easier, not because student achievement improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be sure, $190 million a year for a test is a lot of money. And everyone I talked with said that the process could be more efficient. A \u003ca href=\"https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26427/Highlights-Pragmatic-Future-for-NAEP.pdf\">2022 report from the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/a> suggested that efficiencies and updated technology could reduce costs, while maintaining rigorous quality standards. But it would be impossible to preserve the quality if DOGE gets its way with a sudden 50 percent cost reduction, Wright said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Oversight\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">mass firings\u003c/a> of federal employees at the Education Department in March, just two people who were involved with NAEP remained. Only one of them has experience managing contracts with outside vendors. Before the mass firings, Education Department employees would check in with their vendors daily and spend hours in meetings with them every week, helping to make decisions when complications came up, such as not being able to recruit enough students for field testing new questions. Now, the sole remaining contract overseer is responsible for not just NAEP but all of the contracts for statistical collections. She has no more than 10 minutes a week for each vendor, former education employees said. “When you don’t have these bodies, you can run into errors,” said Wright. “You need to monitor this work day in and day out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone is worried. Erika Donalds is a close ally of Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Donalds runs the Center for Education Opportunity at the right-wing think tank, American First Policy Institute. She expressed confidence that McMahon would preserve NAEP, which Donalds characterized as “valuable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t have the same level of heartburn right now,” said Donalds. “I have confidence in the team and in their understanding of the importance of the continuity of information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Lobbying behind the scenes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Anxiety about NAEP was discussed at an April 2 webinar by the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit that advises states on their annual tests. According to Juan D’Brot, a senior associate at the center, many state education chiefs and their staff were in Washington in March for the legislative conference of Council of Chief State School Officers. “From what we learned, many advocated for both the role of NAEP and the importance of credible, high-stakes assessments directly to the Department of Education,” he wrote in the webinar chat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other supporters of the test are making their case in the media. William Bennett, education secretary under former President Ronald Reagan, penned an \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/an-open-letter-to-linda-mcmahon/\">open letter\u003c/a> along with conservative commentator Chester Finn in The 74, urging McMahon to preserve NAEP, calling it “the single most important activity of the department.” Then Bennett teamed up with Lamar Alexander, the education secretary under former President George H.W. Bush, with an \u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/william-bennett-lamar-alexander-we-both-ran-education-dept-3-things-keep\">opinion piece\u003c/a> on the Fox News website that said NAEP was chief among the three most important functions at the Education Department that should be preserved. David Winston, a Republican consultant who worked for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://rollcall.com/2025/03/26/whatever-happens-to-the-education-department-preserve-naep/\">piece\u003c/a> in Roll Call, headlined “We must protect NAEP.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear if anyone in the Education Department is listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-naep-not-safe/\">\u003cem>future of NAEP\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "How the Education Department Helps Students with Disabilities Get an Education | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sueli Gwiazdowski, 24, says she switched high schools three times when she was growing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wanted to stay at her first school because she loved being on the speech and debate team – but the campus wasn’t wheelchair accessible. Her second school forced her to learn in a separate room, away from her non-disabled friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to fight my way out of that by going to a lot of…meetings and asserting that I was capable and able to participate in the general education setting,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gwiazdowski has medical and physical disabilities and was, for many years, a full-time wheelchair user.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A federal law protects against the kind of discrimination Gwiazdowski says she experienced, and she invoked that law – the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – throughout her schooling to advocate for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Quite frankly, had it not been for the publicly accessible resources that the Department of Education has provided to students with disabilities like myself, I probably would not have gone to college,” says Gwiazdowski, who is now both a college graduate and an advocate for disability rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I definitely wouldn’t be waiting for law school to start this fall had it not been for those resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the U.S. Education Department’s role in helping students with disabilities may be changing soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Trump has said his administration is \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>going to move\u003c/u>\u003c/a> “special needs” to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an agency that recently announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/01/g-s1-57485/hhs-fda-layoffs-doge-cdc-nih\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its own drastic cuts\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. His administration hasn’t specified exactly which programs will be moved, and whether IDEA is among them, but the conservative policy playbook \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/11/05/g-s1-32720/what-is-project-2025-trump-election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Project 2025\u003c/u>\u003c/a> does propose moving IDEA to HHS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5907x3938+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc9%2F12%2Fcf8cade04d58b0b1b240053c2155%2Fgettyimages-2206813203.jpg\" alt=\"Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump depart after the president signed an executive order, on March 20, aimed at closing the Education Department.\">\u003cfigcaption>Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump depart after the president signed an executive order, on March 20, aimed at closing the Education Department. \u003ccite> (Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Department of Education spokesperson Madi Biedermann said, “The Department is actively reviewing where [Education Department] programs can be responsibly managed to best serve students and families. This will be done in partnership with Congress, other agencies, and national and state education leaders.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts tell NPR any such move would be incredibly complicated. Special education laws are “intertwined” with the Education Department, says Katy Neas, a former deputy assistant secretary in the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the separation away from a broader institution of education just seems misguided to me,” says Neas, who now leads The Arc, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities. Neas says moving some of the legally protected programs to another agency would also require an act of Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some conservatives wonder if the federal government has even been that helpful when it comes to special education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, parents make their [education plans] with their local educators, right? With their school and their school district. They don’t make it with Washington,” says Jonathan Butcher, an education researcher at the Heritage Foundation, which helped shape Project 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With so many questions swirling around the future of federal involvement in special education, here’s a look at how the Department of Education traditionally contributes to the schooling of students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Helping schools follow federal laws aimed at students with disabilities\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Department of Education oversees many federal laws that govern how students with and without disabilities experience school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But IDEA is one of the primary ways the federal government contributes to educating disabled students. The law enshrines the right of every child to “a free and appropriate public education,” and it says students with disabilities have a right to individual education programs (IEPs) that lay out the services each child is entitled to. IDEA is also the vehicle through which the federal government sends money to schools to help pay for those services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only does the Department of Education provide funding for staffing and resources to the individual school divisions, but IDEA, I mean, that’s your accountability framework,” says Mark Burnette, superintendent of Carroll County Public Schools in rural southwestern Virginia. He says nearly a fifth of his students qualify for services under IDEA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8079x5568+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3b%2F00%2F913290e146a9b0ac7e4c5fddfa72%2Fap23166786415011.jpg\" alt=\"Special education teacher Vivien Henshall walks with student Scarlett Rasmussen, 8, as Scarlett's mother, Chelsea, follows with a service dog. Because of her disabilities, Scarlett needs regular access to a nurse at school.\">\u003cfigcaption>Special education teacher Vivien Henshall walks with student Scarlett Rasmussen, 8, as Scarlett’s mother, Chelsea, follows with a service dog. Because of her disabilities, Scarlett needs regular access to a nurse at school. \u003ccite> (Lindsey Wasson | AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, IDEA serves about 7.5 million students, or 15% of the K-12 student population. In fiscal year 2024, Congress set aside $15.4 billion for IDEA. The Education Department is in charge of distributing that money to states, which then pass those funds on to qualifying school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IDEA funds are used to pay for special education teachers and staff, technology to meet students’ individual needs, instructional materials, transportation and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A child who has a hearing impairment may need a sign language interpreter or captioning to really follow what’s going on in class,” says Neas. “It’s those things that allow a child with a disability to really learn the same material as their non-disabled peers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Education is responsible for monitoring whether states and school districts are following IDEA, and other laws aimed at students with disabilities. That includes Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which says students are entitled to reasonable accommodations, such as scheduled breaks for a child with diabetes to have a snack or check their insulin levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also provides IDEA guidance to state leaders, and collect data that help determine eligibility for IDEA funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Enforcing special education law and the civil rights of students with disabilities\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, is the Education Department’s enforcement arm. When students face discrimination at school, they can file a complaint with OCR, which could lead to a federal investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This office is responsible for discrimination complaints on the basis of race, sex, national origin and other categories, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/reports/annual/ocr/report-to-president-and-secretary-of-education-2023.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>OCR data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> shows disability discrimination has historically made up the largest share of complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7e%2F9f%2F7b1e20cb4d19982b3e6552bbe0b0%2Fgettyimages-1248158925.jpg\" alt=\"In 2023, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Four Rivers Special Education District, in Jacksonville, Ill., for allegedly leaning on law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities, ProPublica reported. This photo shows a hallway at the Garrison School, which is part of that district.\">\u003cfigcaption>In 2023, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Four Rivers Special Education District, in Jacksonville, Ill., for allegedly leaning on law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities, ProPublica \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-investigation-illinois-garrison-school-arrests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a>. This photo shows a hallway at the Garrison School, which is part of that district. \u003ccite> (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sueli Gwiazdowski wishes she would have taken advantage of OCR during her schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The formal complaint process would have allowed me to be a kid,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would have let her put the responsibility of enforcement “in the laps of the attorneys and investigators who are paid to do that at the Office for Civil Rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the number of OCR complaints has reached record highs, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/05/nx-s1-4993770/discrimination-complaints-students-with-disabilities-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>many have dragged through the system\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for months on end. But recently, OCR’s capacity to handle all those cases was further strained: When U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon slashed the Education Department’s workforce nearly in half, OCR also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>lost more than 40% of its staff\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, along with seven of its 12 regional offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration promised it would preserve “resources for children with special disabilities.” But the mass layoffs also affected the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, where Neas used to work. The teams that conduct research on special education, help determine eligibility for IDEA funds and those who provide legal guidance to state and local leaders were also impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have any type of accountability standards or someone to report to, then that leaves room for people to take advantage of programs and not provide the services that they need to provide,” says Burnette, the superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Gilberg, a special education attorney in New York and Connecticut who also has autism, says one of his disabled clients recently filed a complaint with OCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With no Department of Education functioning in that area, that puts [their case] to a standstill,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilberg notes that without OCR, “The only recourse a family would have would, in theory, be to sue the school district in either federal court or state court…and that takes a lot of time and a lot of money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The future role of the federal government in special education\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Several of the experts NPR spoke with expressed concern about moving special education programs to HHS, and away from the Education Department, an institution that specializes in helping all students learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alison Barkoff, who led disability programs at HHS until last year, says splintering special education programs into different agencies “is really counterproductive to what IDEA and the goals of special education are about, which is students with disabilities as students first, as part of their schools, part of their classrooms. And that can’t happen if it’s separated from general education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation sees the proposed moves as an opportunity to improve the role of the federal government in the lives of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think that moving it to another agency is an appropriate move because I don’t think that we have evidence that the U.S. Department of Education has effectively served these families,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Change is difficult and that’s why it doesn’t happen very often at the federal level, but this is an opportunity to streamline federal processes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disability advocate Sueli Gwiazdowski says \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/12/26/nx-s1-5213714/a-1975-law-helped-kids-with-disabilities-access-education-schools-now-need-more-help\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>history has shown\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the dangers of separating the rights of disabled students from non-disabled students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When educating disabled students has not been considered part of normative general education, that has looked like what? It’s looked like institutionalization.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She worries if special education were to move to HHS, disability could be categorized as a health concern rather than an integrated part of public life, including in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting contributed by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wfyi.org/news/authors/dylan-peers-mccoy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Dylan Peers McCoy\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Digital story edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Nicole Cohen\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Radio story edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Steve Drummond\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visuals by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/g-s1-8194/mhari-shaw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Mhari Shaw\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sueli Gwiazdowski, 24, says she switched high schools three times when she was growing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wanted to stay at her first school because she loved being on the speech and debate team – but the campus wasn’t wheelchair accessible. Her second school forced her to learn in a separate room, away from her non-disabled friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to fight my way out of that by going to a lot of…meetings and asserting that I was capable and able to participate in the general education setting,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gwiazdowski has medical and physical disabilities and was, for many years, a full-time wheelchair user.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A federal law protects against the kind of discrimination Gwiazdowski says she experienced, and she invoked that law – the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – throughout her schooling to advocate for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Quite frankly, had it not been for the publicly accessible resources that the Department of Education has provided to students with disabilities like myself, I probably would not have gone to college,” says Gwiazdowski, who is now both a college graduate and an advocate for disability rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I definitely wouldn’t be waiting for law school to start this fall had it not been for those resources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the U.S. Education Department’s role in helping students with disabilities may be changing soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Trump has said his administration is \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/21/nx-s1-5336330/trump-education-department-student-loans-special-education-fsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>going to move\u003c/u>\u003c/a> “special needs” to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an agency that recently announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/01/g-s1-57485/hhs-fda-layoffs-doge-cdc-nih\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>its own drastic cuts\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. His administration hasn’t specified exactly which programs will be moved, and whether IDEA is among them, but the conservative policy playbook \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/11/05/g-s1-32720/what-is-project-2025-trump-election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Project 2025\u003c/u>\u003c/a> does propose moving IDEA to HHS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5907x3938+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc9%2F12%2Fcf8cade04d58b0b1b240053c2155%2Fgettyimages-2206813203.jpg\" alt=\"Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump depart after the president signed an executive order, on March 20, aimed at closing the Education Department.\">\u003cfigcaption>Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump depart after the president signed an executive order, on March 20, aimed at closing the Education Department. \u003ccite> (Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Department of Education spokesperson Madi Biedermann said, “The Department is actively reviewing where [Education Department] programs can be responsibly managed to best serve students and families. This will be done in partnership with Congress, other agencies, and national and state education leaders.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts tell NPR any such move would be incredibly complicated. Special education laws are “intertwined” with the Education Department, says Katy Neas, a former deputy assistant secretary in the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the separation away from a broader institution of education just seems misguided to me,” says Neas, who now leads The Arc, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities. Neas says moving some of the legally protected programs to another agency would also require an act of Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some conservatives wonder if the federal government has even been that helpful when it comes to special education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I mean, parents make their [education plans] with their local educators, right? With their school and their school district. They don’t make it with Washington,” says Jonathan Butcher, an education researcher at the Heritage Foundation, which helped shape Project 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With so many questions swirling around the future of federal involvement in special education, here’s a look at how the Department of Education traditionally contributes to the schooling of students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Helping schools follow federal laws aimed at students with disabilities\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Department of Education oversees many federal laws that govern how students with and without disabilities experience school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But IDEA is one of the primary ways the federal government contributes to educating disabled students. The law enshrines the right of every child to “a free and appropriate public education,” and it says students with disabilities have a right to individual education programs (IEPs) that lay out the services each child is entitled to. IDEA is also the vehicle through which the federal government sends money to schools to help pay for those services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only does the Department of Education provide funding for staffing and resources to the individual school divisions, but IDEA, I mean, that’s your accountability framework,” says Mark Burnette, superintendent of Carroll County Public Schools in rural southwestern Virginia. He says nearly a fifth of his students qualify for services under IDEA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8079x5568+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3b%2F00%2F913290e146a9b0ac7e4c5fddfa72%2Fap23166786415011.jpg\" alt=\"Special education teacher Vivien Henshall walks with student Scarlett Rasmussen, 8, as Scarlett's mother, Chelsea, follows with a service dog. Because of her disabilities, Scarlett needs regular access to a nurse at school.\">\u003cfigcaption>Special education teacher Vivien Henshall walks with student Scarlett Rasmussen, 8, as Scarlett’s mother, Chelsea, follows with a service dog. Because of her disabilities, Scarlett needs regular access to a nurse at school. \u003ccite> (Lindsey Wasson | AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, IDEA serves about 7.5 million students, or 15% of the K-12 student population. In fiscal year 2024, Congress set aside $15.4 billion for IDEA. The Education Department is in charge of distributing that money to states, which then pass those funds on to qualifying school districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IDEA funds are used to pay for special education teachers and staff, technology to meet students’ individual needs, instructional materials, transportation and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A child who has a hearing impairment may need a sign language interpreter or captioning to really follow what’s going on in class,” says Neas. “It’s those things that allow a child with a disability to really learn the same material as their non-disabled peers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Education is responsible for monitoring whether states and school districts are following IDEA, and other laws aimed at students with disabilities. That includes Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which says students are entitled to reasonable accommodations, such as scheduled breaks for a child with diabetes to have a snack or check their insulin levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also provides IDEA guidance to state leaders, and collect data that help determine eligibility for IDEA funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Enforcing special education law and the civil rights of students with disabilities\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, is the Education Department’s enforcement arm. When students face discrimination at school, they can file a complaint with OCR, which could lead to a federal investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This office is responsible for discrimination complaints on the basis of race, sex, national origin and other categories, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/reports/annual/ocr/report-to-president-and-secretary-of-education-2023.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>OCR data\u003c/u>\u003c/a> shows disability discrimination has historically made up the largest share of complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7e%2F9f%2F7b1e20cb4d19982b3e6552bbe0b0%2Fgettyimages-1248158925.jpg\" alt=\"In 2023, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Four Rivers Special Education District, in Jacksonville, Ill., for allegedly leaning on law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities, ProPublica reported. This photo shows a hallway at the Garrison School, which is part of that district.\">\u003cfigcaption>In 2023, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Four Rivers Special Education District, in Jacksonville, Ill., for allegedly leaning on law enforcement to discipline students with disabilities, ProPublica \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-investigation-illinois-garrison-school-arrests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a>. This photo shows a hallway at the Garrison School, which is part of that district. \u003ccite> (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sueli Gwiazdowski wishes she would have taken advantage of OCR during her schooling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The formal complaint process would have allowed me to be a kid,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would have let her put the responsibility of enforcement “in the laps of the attorneys and investigators who are paid to do that at the Office for Civil Rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the number of OCR complaints has reached record highs, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/07/05/nx-s1-4993770/discrimination-complaints-students-with-disabilities-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>many have dragged through the system\u003c/u>\u003c/a> for months on end. But recently, OCR’s capacity to handle all those cases was further strained: When U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon slashed the Education Department’s workforce nearly in half, OCR also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>lost more than 40% of its staff\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, along with seven of its 12 regional offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration promised it would preserve “resources for children with special disabilities.” But the mass layoffs also affected the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, where Neas used to work. The teams that conduct research on special education, help determine eligibility for IDEA funds and those who provide legal guidance to state and local leaders were also impacted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have any type of accountability standards or someone to report to, then that leaves room for people to take advantage of programs and not provide the services that they need to provide,” says Burnette, the superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Gilberg, a special education attorney in New York and Connecticut who also has autism, says one of his disabled clients recently filed a complaint with OCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With no Department of Education functioning in that area, that puts [their case] to a standstill,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilberg notes that without OCR, “The only recourse a family would have would, in theory, be to sue the school district in either federal court or state court…and that takes a lot of time and a lot of money.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The future role of the federal government in special education\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Several of the experts NPR spoke with expressed concern about moving special education programs to HHS, and away from the Education Department, an institution that specializes in helping all students learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alison Barkoff, who led disability programs at HHS until last year, says splintering special education programs into different agencies “is really counterproductive to what IDEA and the goals of special education are about, which is students with disabilities as students first, as part of their schools, part of their classrooms. And that can’t happen if it’s separated from general education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation sees the proposed moves as an opportunity to improve the role of the federal government in the lives of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think that moving it to another agency is an appropriate move because I don’t think that we have evidence that the U.S. Department of Education has effectively served these families,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Change is difficult and that’s why it doesn’t happen very often at the federal level, but this is an opportunity to streamline federal processes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disability advocate Sueli Gwiazdowski says \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/12/26/nx-s1-5213714/a-1975-law-helped-kids-with-disabilities-access-education-schools-now-need-more-help\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>history has shown\u003c/u>\u003c/a> the dangers of separating the rights of disabled students from non-disabled students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When educating disabled students has not been considered part of normative general education, that has looked like what? It’s looked like institutionalization.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She worries if special education were to move to HHS, disability could be categorized as a health concern rather than an integrated part of public life, including in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting contributed by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wfyi.org/news/authors/dylan-peers-mccoy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Dylan Peers McCoy\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Digital story edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348780034/nicole-cohen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Nicole Cohen\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Radio story edited by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/6576424/steve-drummond\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Steve Drummond\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Visuals by: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/g-s1-8194/mhari-shaw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>Mhari Shaw\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Trump administration says one of its primary goals in education is to expand school choice and put power back in the hands of parents. Yet it has killed the main way to track one of the most rapidly growing options – learning at home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Education Department began counting the number of homeschooled children in 1999, when fewer than \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2023/2023101.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2 percent\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of students were educated this way. Homeschooling rose by 50 percent in the first decade of the 2000s and then leveled off at around \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2023/2023101.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3 percent\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most recent survey of families took place in 2023, and it would have been the first indication of the growth of homeschooling since the pandemic. The data collection was nearly finished and ready to be released to the public, but in February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) terminated the contract for this data collection, which is part of the National Household Education Survey, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">along with 88 other education contracts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Then in March, the federal statisticians who oversee the data collection and could review the final figures were \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fired along with almost everyone else\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). As things stand now, this federal homeschool data is unlikely to ever be released. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Work on these data files has stopped and there are no current plans for that work to continue,” said a spokesman for the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization that had held the contract to collect and analyze the data before DOGE canceled it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The loss of this data upset both avid supporters and watchdogs of school choice, particularly now that some states are expanding their Education Savings Account (ESA) programs to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/publications/PB%20Huerta.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">transfer public funds directly to families who homeschool their children\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Angela Watson, a prominent Johns Hopkins University researcher who runs the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://education.jhu.edu/edpolicy/policy-research-initiatives/homeschool-hub/homeschool-research-lab/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Homeschool Research Lab\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, called it a “massive loss.” Robert Maranto, a professor in the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas, said that in the past, the federal statistics have helped “dispel some of the myths” that homeschooling is “overwhelmingly white,” when, in fact, a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-new-homeschoolers-more-diverse-just-as-committed/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more diverse population\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is learning this way. Maranto also serves as the editor of the Journal of School Choice. The most recent issue was devoted to homeschooling and about half the articles in it cited NCES reports, he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“There is a certain irony that a pro-school choice administration would cut objective data that might help increase acceptance of homeschooling,” said Maranto. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is unclear what will happen to the unreleased 2023 homeschool data or if the Education Department will ever collect homeschool statistics in the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In response to questions about the fate of the homeschool data, Education Department spokeswoman Madison Biedermann said that its research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, is in possession of the data and that it is “reviewing how all its contractual activities can best be used to meet its statutory obligations.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last September, the Education Department released some \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/report/first-look-ed-tab/parent-and-family-involvement-education-2023\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">preliminary statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the 2023 survey. It noted a small increase in traditional homeschooling since 2019 but a large increase in the number of students who were enrolled in an online virtual school and learning from home full time. Together, more than 5 percent of U.S. students were learning at home in one of these two ways. Fewer than 4 percent were learning at home in 2019. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65362\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023.jpg\" alt=\"Chart showing types of homeschooling and participation\" width=\"2482\" height=\"1272\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023.jpg 2482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-800x410.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1020x523.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-160x82.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-768x394.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1536x787.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-2048x1050.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1920x984.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2482px) 100vw, 2482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: National Center for Education Statistics, September 2024 media briefing slide.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers were keen to dig into the data to understand the different flavors of homeschooling, from online courses to microschools, which are tiny schools that often operate in private homes or places of worship. Researchers also want to understand why more parents are opting for homeschooling and which subjects they are directly teaching their children, all questions that are included in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/nhes/pdf/pfi/2023_pfi.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parent survey\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> conducted by the Education Department. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tracking homeschooling is notoriously difficult. Families who choose this option can be distrustful of government, but this was one of the few surveys that homeschool advocates cited to document the growth in their numbers and they advised the writers of the federal survey on how to phrase questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beginning in 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau also began collecting some \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">data on homeschooling\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but those statistics cannot be directly compared with the Education Department data and without a historical record, the census data is less useful, researchers said. It is also unclear if this census data will continue. Some states collect data on homeschooling, but researchers said they do it in different ways, making it impossible to compare homeschooling across states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patrick Wolf, a professor of education policy who studies school choice at the University of Arkansas, was also dismayed by the loss of the Education Department’s statistics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“A federal government agency has been collecting national statistics on education since 1867,” he said. “State and local policy makers and practitioners will be severely challenged in doing their work if they don’t have good data from the feds regarding public schooling, private schooling, and homeschooling. Sending education authority to the states only will work well if the federal government continues to collect and publish comprehensive data on schooling. Otherwise, state and local officials are being asked to fly blind.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contact staff writer \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jill Barshay\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This story about the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">homeschool statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proof Points\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and other \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hechinger newsletters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Trump administration says one of its primary goals in education is to expand school choice and put power back in the hands of parents. Yet it has killed the main way to track one of the most rapidly growing options – learning at home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Education Department began counting the number of homeschooled children in 1999, when fewer than \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2023/2023101.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2 percent\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of students were educated this way. Homeschooling rose by 50 percent in the first decade of the 2000s and then leveled off at around \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2023/2023101.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3 percent\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most recent survey of families took place in 2023, and it would have been the first indication of the growth of homeschooling since the pandemic. The data collection was nearly finished and ready to be released to the public, but in February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) terminated the contract for this data collection, which is part of the National Household Education Survey, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">along with 88 other education contracts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Then in March, the federal statisticians who oversee the data collection and could review the final figures were \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fired along with almost everyone else\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). As things stand now, this federal homeschool data is unlikely to ever be released. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Work on these data files has stopped and there are no current plans for that work to continue,” said a spokesman for the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization that had held the contract to collect and analyze the data before DOGE canceled it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The loss of this data upset both avid supporters and watchdogs of school choice, particularly now that some states are expanding their Education Savings Account (ESA) programs to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/publications/PB%20Huerta.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">transfer public funds directly to families who homeschool their children\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Angela Watson, a prominent Johns Hopkins University researcher who runs the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://education.jhu.edu/edpolicy/policy-research-initiatives/homeschool-hub/homeschool-research-lab/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Homeschool Research Lab\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, called it a “massive loss.” Robert Maranto, a professor in the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas, said that in the past, the federal statistics have helped “dispel some of the myths” that homeschooling is “overwhelmingly white,” when, in fact, a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-new-homeschoolers-more-diverse-just-as-committed/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more diverse population\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is learning this way. Maranto also serves as the editor of the Journal of School Choice. The most recent issue was devoted to homeschooling and about half the articles in it cited NCES reports, he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“There is a certain irony that a pro-school choice administration would cut objective data that might help increase acceptance of homeschooling,” said Maranto. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is unclear what will happen to the unreleased 2023 homeschool data or if the Education Department will ever collect homeschool statistics in the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In response to questions about the fate of the homeschool data, Education Department spokeswoman Madison Biedermann said that its research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, is in possession of the data and that it is “reviewing how all its contractual activities can best be used to meet its statutory obligations.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last September, the Education Department released some \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/report/first-look-ed-tab/parent-and-family-involvement-education-2023\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">preliminary statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the 2023 survey. It noted a small increase in traditional homeschooling since 2019 but a large increase in the number of students who were enrolled in an online virtual school and learning from home full time. Together, more than 5 percent of U.S. students were learning at home in one of these two ways. Fewer than 4 percent were learning at home in 2019. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65362\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023.jpg\" alt=\"Chart showing types of homeschooling and participation\" width=\"2482\" height=\"1272\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023.jpg 2482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-800x410.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1020x523.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-160x82.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-768x394.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1536x787.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-2048x1050.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/Homeschool-instruction-2023-1920x984.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2482px) 100vw, 2482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: National Center for Education Statistics, September 2024 media briefing slide.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers were keen to dig into the data to understand the different flavors of homeschooling, from online courses to microschools, which are tiny schools that often operate in private homes or places of worship. Researchers also want to understand why more parents are opting for homeschooling and which subjects they are directly teaching their children, all questions that are included in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/nhes/pdf/pfi/2023_pfi.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parent survey\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> conducted by the Education Department. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tracking homeschooling is notoriously difficult. Families who choose this option can be distrustful of government, but this was one of the few surveys that homeschool advocates cited to document the growth in their numbers and they advised the writers of the federal survey on how to phrase questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beginning in 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau also began collecting some \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">data on homeschooling\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but those statistics cannot be directly compared with the Education Department data and without a historical record, the census data is less useful, researchers said. It is also unclear if this census data will continue. Some states collect data on homeschooling, but researchers said they do it in different ways, making it impossible to compare homeschooling across states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patrick Wolf, a professor of education policy who studies school choice at the University of Arkansas, was also dismayed by the loss of the Education Department’s statistics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“A federal government agency has been collecting national statistics on education since 1867,” he said. “State and local policy makers and practitioners will be severely challenged in doing their work if they don’t have good data from the feds regarding public schooling, private schooling, and homeschooling. Sending education authority to the states only will work well if the federal government continues to collect and publish comprehensive data on schooling. Otherwise, state and local officials are being asked to fly blind.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contact staff writer \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jill Barshay\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This story about the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">homeschool statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proof Points\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and other \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hechinger newsletters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "chaos-and-confusion-as-the-statistics-arm-of-the-education-department-is-reduced-to-a-skeletal-staff-of-3",
"title": "Chaos and Confusion as the Statistics Arm of the Education Department is Reduced to a Skeletal Staff of 3",
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"headTitle": "Chaos and Confusion as the Statistics Arm of the Education Department is Reduced to a Skeletal Staff of 3 | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Donald Trump promises he’ll make American schools great again. He has fired nearly everyone who might objectively measure whether he succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/tracking-trump-his-actions-on-education/\">mass layoffs\u003c/a> by his secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, of more than 1,300 Department of Education employees delivered a crippling blow to the agency’s ability to tell the public how schools and federal programs are doing through its statistics and research branch. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is now left with fewer than 20 federal employees, down from more than 175 at the start of the second Trump administration, according to my reporting. It’s not clear how the institute can operate or even fulfill its statutory obligations set by Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IES is modeled after the National Institutes of Health and was established in 2002 during the administration of former President George W. Bush to fund innovations and identify effective teaching practices. Its largest division is a statistical agency that dates back to 1867 and is called the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which collects basic statistics on the number of students and teachers. NCES is perhaps best known for administering the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\">National Assessment of Educational Progress\u003c/a>, which tracks student achievement across the country. The layoffs “demolished” the statistics agency, as one former official characterized it, from roughly 100 employees to a skeletal staff of just three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of having three individuals manage the work that was done by a hundred federal employees supported by thousands of contractors is ludicrous and not humanly possible,” said Stephen Provasnik, a former deputy commissioner of NCES who retired early in January. “There is no way without a significant staff that NCES could keep up even a fraction of its previous workload.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the new acting commissioner of education statistics, a congressionally mandated position, was terminated with everyone else on March 11 after just 15 days on the job, according to five former employees. Chris Chapman replaced Biden-appointee Peggy Carr, who was \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-former-trump-commissioner-blasts-education-data-cuts/\">suddenly removed on Feb. 24\u003c/a> without explanation before her congressionally designated six-year term was to end in 2027. It was unclear who, if anyone, will serve as the commissioner after Chapman’s last day on March 21. (Chapman did not respond to an email for comment.) Meanwhile, the chief statistician, Gail Mulligan, was put on administrative leave until her \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/YRCmCPNYRAuo9kQVh0hDUxGGrV?domain=linkedin.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">early retirement\u003c/a> on April 1.* There is apparently no replacement to review the accuracy of figures reported to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Two offices spared\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Only two IES offices were untouched by this week’s layoffs: the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/about/national-center-special-education-research-ncser\">National Center for Special Education Research\u003c/a>, an eight-person office that awards grants to study effective ways to teach children with disabilities, and the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/about/office-science\">Office of Science\u003c/a>, a six-person office that reviews research for quality, accuracy and validity. It was unclear why they were spared. Other areas of the Education Department that fund and oversee education for children with disabilities also had relatively lighter layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A draft of an executive order to eliminate the Education Department was prepared in early March, but Trump hadn’t signed it as of this week. Instead, McMahon said \u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/media/education-secretary-mcmahon-praises-department-taking-steps-eliminate-bureaucratic-bloat\">on Fox News\u003c/a> that she began firing employees as a “first step” toward that elimination. Former department employees believe that McMahon and her team decided which offices to cut. Weeks before her confirmation, about a half dozen people from McMahon’s former think tank, the right-wing \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign-america-first-policy-institute.html\">America First Policy Institute\u003c/a>, were inside the department and looking at the bureaucracy, according to a former official at the Education Department. The Education Department did not respond to my email queries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mass firings this month were preceded by a Feb. 10 onslaught, when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">terminated much of the work\u003c/a> that is overseen by these education research and statistics units. Most of the department’s research and data collections are carried out by outside contractors, and nearly 90 of these contracts were canceled, including vital data collections on students and teachers. The distribution of roughly $16 billion in federal Title I aid to low-income schools cannot be calculated properly without this data. Now, the statisticians who know how to run the complicated formula are also gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Five-alarm fire’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The mass firings and contract cancellations stunned many. “This is a five-alarm fire, burning statistics that we need to understand and improve education,” said Andrew Ho, a psychometrician at Harvard University and president of the National Council on Measurement in Education, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew-ho-46127722a_i-spoke-up-on-behalf-of-naep-and-measurement-activity-7305656265836298240-YFVN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABOsY8BDVlfLq8BBp90gugfoOY6nDIh4D8\">on social media\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley, who ran the education statistics unit from 2010 to 2015, described the destruction as “surreal.” “I’m just sad,” said Buckley. “Everyone’s entitled to their own policy ideas, but no one’s entitled to their own facts. You have to share the truth in order to make any kind of improvement, no matter what direction you want to go. It does not feel like that is the world we live in now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The deepest cuts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While other units inside the Education Department lost more employees in absolute numbers, IES lost the highest percentage of employees — roughly 90 percent of its workforce. Education researchers questioned why the Trump administration targeted research and statistics. “All of this feels like part of an attack on universities and science,” said an education professor at a major research university, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fear is well-founded. Earlier this month the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/doj-hhs-ed-and-gsa-announce-initial-cancelation-of-grants-and-contracts-columbia-university-worth-400-million\">canceled $400 million\u003c/a> in federal contracts and grants with Columbia University, blaming the university’s failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitism during campus protests last year over Israeli attacks on Gaza. Among them were four research grants that had been issued by IES, including an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Federal Work-Study program, which costs the government $1 billion a year. That five-year study was near completion and now the public will not learn the results. (\u003cem>The Hechinger Report is an independent news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Brock, executive director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, said he had been cautiously optimistic that he could successfully appeal the cancellation of his $2.8 million in education research grants. (He planned to argue that Teachers College is a separate entity from the rest of Columbia with its own president and board of trustees and it was not affected by student protests to the same degree.) But now the IES office that issued the grants, the National Center for Education Research, has lost its staff. “I’m very discouraged,” said Brock. “Even if we win on appeal, all the staff have been laid off. Who would reinstate the grant? Who would we report to? Who would monitor it? They have completely eliminated the infrastructure. I could imagine a scenario where we would win on appeal and it can’t be put into effect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Active contracts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many contracts with outside organizations for data collection and research grants with university professors remain active. That includes the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tracks student achievement, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which collects data on colleges and universities. But now there are almost no employees left to oversee these efforts, review them for accuracy or sign future contracts for new data collections and studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My job was to make sure that the limited public dollars for education research were spent as best as they could be,” said one former education official who issued grants for the development of new innovations. “We make sure there’s no fraud, waste and abuse. Now there’s no watchdog to oversee it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former official asked to remain anonymous as did more than a dozen other former employees whom I talked to while reporting this story. Some explained that the conditions of their termination, called a “reduction in force” or “RIF,” could mean losing their severance if they talked to the press. The terminated employees are supposed to work from home until their last day on March 21, and they described having limited access to their work computer systems. That is stymying efforts to wind down their work with their colleagues and outside contractors in an orderly way. One described how she had to take a cellphone picture of her termination notice on her laptop because she could no longer save or send documents on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there has been no sign of protest among congressional Republicans, even though some of the cuts affect data and research they have mandated. A spokesman for Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, directed me to Cassidy’s statement on X. “I spoke to @EDSecMcMahon and she made it clear this will not have an impact on @usedgov ability to carry out its statutory obligations. This action is aimed at fulfilling the admin’s goal of addressing redundancy and inefficiency in the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Following the law\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In theory, a skeletal staff might be able to fulfill the law, which is often “ambiguous,” said former NCES commissioner Buckley. For example, the annual report to Congress on the condition of education could be as short as one page. Laws mention several data collections, such as ones on financial aid to college students and on the experiences of teachers, but often don’t specify how often they must be produced. Technically, they could be paused for many years without running afoul of statutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The remaining skeleton crew could award contracts to outside organizations to do all the work and have them “supervise themselves,” said Buckley. “I’m not advocating that oversight be pushed out to contractors, but you could do it in theory. It depends on your tolerance for contracting out work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>NAEP anxiety\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many are anxious about the future of NAEP, also known as the Nation’s Report Card. Even before the firings, William Bennett, Education Secretary under President Ronald Reagan, penned an \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/an-open-letter-to-linda-mcmahon/\">open letter\u003c/a> along with conservative commentator Chester Finn in The 74, urging McMahon to preserve NAEP, calling it “the single most important activity of the department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who chairs the National Governors Association, is especially concerned. In an email, Polis’ spokesman emphasized that Polis believes that “NAEP is critical.” He warned that “undercutting data collection and removing this objective measuring stick that helps states understand and improve performance will only make our efforts more difficult.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though much of the test development and administration is contracted out to private organizations and firms, it is unclear how these contracts could be signed and overseen by the Education Department with such a diminished staff. Some officials suggested that the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which sets NAEP policy, could take over the test’s administration. But the board’s current staff doesn’t have the testing or psychometrics expertise to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions, board members declined to comment on the future of NAEP and whether anyone in the Trump administration had asked them to take it over. One former education official believes there is “apparently some confusion” in the Trump administration about the division of labor between NAGB and NCES and a “misunderstanding of how work gets done in implementing” the assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Schneider, a former IES director who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he hoped that McMahon would rebuild NCES into a modern, more efficient statistical agency that could collect data more cheaply and quickly, and redirect IES’s research division to drive breakthrough innovations like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.darpa.mil/news/2025/discover-dso-day\">Defense Department has\u003c/a>. But he conceded that McMahon also cut some of the offices that would be needed to modernize the bureaucracy, such as the centralized procurement office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there’s no sign of Trump’s or McMahon’s intent to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>* Clarification: An earlier version of this story said that Mulligan had been terminated, but she revised a social media post about her status after publication of this story to clarify that she was not subject to the “reduction in force” notice. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003cem>Institute of Education Sciences\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Donald Trump promises he’ll make American schools great again. He has fired nearly everyone who might objectively measure whether he succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week’s \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/tracking-trump-his-actions-on-education/\">mass layoffs\u003c/a> by his secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, of more than 1,300 Department of Education employees delivered a crippling blow to the agency’s ability to tell the public how schools and federal programs are doing through its statistics and research branch. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is now left with fewer than 20 federal employees, down from more than 175 at the start of the second Trump administration, according to my reporting. It’s not clear how the institute can operate or even fulfill its statutory obligations set by Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IES is modeled after the National Institutes of Health and was established in 2002 during the administration of former President George W. Bush to fund innovations and identify effective teaching practices. Its largest division is a statistical agency that dates back to 1867 and is called the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which collects basic statistics on the number of students and teachers. NCES is perhaps best known for administering the \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/naep-test-2024-dismal-report/\">National Assessment of Educational Progress\u003c/a>, which tracks student achievement across the country. The layoffs “demolished” the statistics agency, as one former official characterized it, from roughly 100 employees to a skeletal staff of just three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of having three individuals manage the work that was done by a hundred federal employees supported by thousands of contractors is ludicrous and not humanly possible,” said Stephen Provasnik, a former deputy commissioner of NCES who retired early in January. “There is no way without a significant staff that NCES could keep up even a fraction of its previous workload.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the new acting commissioner of education statistics, a congressionally mandated position, was terminated with everyone else on March 11 after just 15 days on the job, according to five former employees. Chris Chapman replaced Biden-appointee Peggy Carr, who was \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-former-trump-commissioner-blasts-education-data-cuts/\">suddenly removed on Feb. 24\u003c/a> without explanation before her congressionally designated six-year term was to end in 2027. It was unclear who, if anyone, will serve as the commissioner after Chapman’s last day on March 21. (Chapman did not respond to an email for comment.) Meanwhile, the chief statistician, Gail Mulligan, was put on administrative leave until her \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/YRCmCPNYRAuo9kQVh0hDUxGGrV?domain=linkedin.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">early retirement\u003c/a> on April 1.* There is apparently no replacement to review the accuracy of figures reported to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Two offices spared\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Only two IES offices were untouched by this week’s layoffs: the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/about/national-center-special-education-research-ncser\">National Center for Special Education Research\u003c/a>, an eight-person office that awards grants to study effective ways to teach children with disabilities, and the \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/about/office-science\">Office of Science\u003c/a>, a six-person office that reviews research for quality, accuracy and validity. It was unclear why they were spared. Other areas of the Education Department that fund and oversee education for children with disabilities also had relatively lighter layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A draft of an executive order to eliminate the Education Department was prepared in early March, but Trump hadn’t signed it as of this week. Instead, McMahon said \u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/media/education-secretary-mcmahon-praises-department-taking-steps-eliminate-bureaucratic-bloat\">on Fox News\u003c/a> that she began firing employees as a “first step” toward that elimination. Former department employees believe that McMahon and her team decided which offices to cut. Weeks before her confirmation, about a half dozen people from McMahon’s former think tank, the right-wing \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign-america-first-policy-institute.html\">America First Policy Institute\u003c/a>, were inside the department and looking at the bureaucracy, according to a former official at the Education Department. The Education Department did not respond to my email queries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mass firings this month were preceded by a Feb. 10 onslaught, when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-doge-death-blow-education-studies/\">terminated much of the work\u003c/a> that is overseen by these education research and statistics units. Most of the department’s research and data collections are carried out by outside contractors, and nearly 90 of these contracts were canceled, including vital data collections on students and teachers. The distribution of roughly $16 billion in federal Title I aid to low-income schools cannot be calculated properly without this data. Now, the statisticians who know how to run the complicated formula are also gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘Five-alarm fire’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The mass firings and contract cancellations stunned many. “This is a five-alarm fire, burning statistics that we need to understand and improve education,” said Andrew Ho, a psychometrician at Harvard University and president of the National Council on Measurement in Education, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew-ho-46127722a_i-spoke-up-on-behalf-of-naep-and-measurement-activity-7305656265836298240-YFVN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABOsY8BDVlfLq8BBp90gugfoOY6nDIh4D8\">on social media\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley, who ran the education statistics unit from 2010 to 2015, described the destruction as “surreal.” “I’m just sad,” said Buckley. “Everyone’s entitled to their own policy ideas, but no one’s entitled to their own facts. You have to share the truth in order to make any kind of improvement, no matter what direction you want to go. It does not feel like that is the world we live in now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The deepest cuts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While other units inside the Education Department lost more employees in absolute numbers, IES lost the highest percentage of employees — roughly 90 percent of its workforce. Education researchers questioned why the Trump administration targeted research and statistics. “All of this feels like part of an attack on universities and science,” said an education professor at a major research university, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fear is well-founded. Earlier this month the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/doj-hhs-ed-and-gsa-announce-initial-cancelation-of-grants-and-contracts-columbia-university-worth-400-million\">canceled $400 million\u003c/a> in federal contracts and grants with Columbia University, blaming the university’s failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitism during campus protests last year over Israeli attacks on Gaza. Among them were four research grants that had been issued by IES, including an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Federal Work-Study program, which costs the government $1 billion a year. That five-year study was near completion and now the public will not learn the results. (\u003cem>The Hechinger Report is an independent news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Brock, executive director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, said he had been cautiously optimistic that he could successfully appeal the cancellation of his $2.8 million in education research grants. (He planned to argue that Teachers College is a separate entity from the rest of Columbia with its own president and board of trustees and it was not affected by student protests to the same degree.) But now the IES office that issued the grants, the National Center for Education Research, has lost its staff. “I’m very discouraged,” said Brock. “Even if we win on appeal, all the staff have been laid off. Who would reinstate the grant? Who would we report to? Who would monitor it? They have completely eliminated the infrastructure. I could imagine a scenario where we would win on appeal and it can’t be put into effect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Active contracts\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many contracts with outside organizations for data collection and research grants with university professors remain active. That includes the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tracks student achievement, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which collects data on colleges and universities. But now there are almost no employees left to oversee these efforts, review them for accuracy or sign future contracts for new data collections and studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My job was to make sure that the limited public dollars for education research were spent as best as they could be,” said one former education official who issued grants for the development of new innovations. “We make sure there’s no fraud, waste and abuse. Now there’s no watchdog to oversee it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former official asked to remain anonymous as did more than a dozen other former employees whom I talked to while reporting this story. Some explained that the conditions of their termination, called a “reduction in force” or “RIF,” could mean losing their severance if they talked to the press. The terminated employees are supposed to work from home until their last day on March 21, and they described having limited access to their work computer systems. That is stymying efforts to wind down their work with their colleagues and outside contractors in an orderly way. One described how she had to take a cellphone picture of her termination notice on her laptop because she could no longer save or send documents on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there has been no sign of protest among congressional Republicans, even though some of the cuts affect data and research they have mandated. A spokesman for Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, directed me to Cassidy’s statement on X. “I spoke to @EDSecMcMahon and she made it clear this will not have an impact on @usedgov ability to carry out its statutory obligations. This action is aimed at fulfilling the admin’s goal of addressing redundancy and inefficiency in the federal government.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Following the law\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In theory, a skeletal staff might be able to fulfill the law, which is often “ambiguous,” said former NCES commissioner Buckley. For example, the annual report to Congress on the condition of education could be as short as one page. Laws mention several data collections, such as ones on financial aid to college students and on the experiences of teachers, but often don’t specify how often they must be produced. Technically, they could be paused for many years without running afoul of statutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The remaining skeleton crew could award contracts to outside organizations to do all the work and have them “supervise themselves,” said Buckley. “I’m not advocating that oversight be pushed out to contractors, but you could do it in theory. It depends on your tolerance for contracting out work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>NAEP anxiety\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many are anxious about the future of NAEP, also known as the Nation’s Report Card. Even before the firings, William Bennett, Education Secretary under President Ronald Reagan, penned an \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/an-open-letter-to-linda-mcmahon/\">open letter\u003c/a> along with conservative commentator Chester Finn in The 74, urging McMahon to preserve NAEP, calling it “the single most important activity of the department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who chairs the National Governors Association, is especially concerned. In an email, Polis’ spokesman emphasized that Polis believes that “NAEP is critical.” He warned that “undercutting data collection and removing this objective measuring stick that helps states understand and improve performance will only make our efforts more difficult.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though much of the test development and administration is contracted out to private organizations and firms, it is unclear how these contracts could be signed and overseen by the Education Department with such a diminished staff. Some officials suggested that the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which sets NAEP policy, could take over the test’s administration. But the board’s current staff doesn’t have the testing or psychometrics expertise to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions, board members declined to comment on the future of NAEP and whether anyone in the Trump administration had asked them to take it over. One former education official believes there is “apparently some confusion” in the Trump administration about the division of labor between NAGB and NCES and a “misunderstanding of how work gets done in implementing” the assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Schneider, a former IES director who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said he hoped that McMahon would rebuild NCES into a modern, more efficient statistical agency that could collect data more cheaply and quickly, and redirect IES’s research division to drive breakthrough innovations like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.darpa.mil/news/2025/discover-dso-day\">Defense Department has\u003c/a>. But he conceded that McMahon also cut some of the offices that would be needed to modernize the bureaucracy, such as the centralized procurement office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, there’s no sign of Trump’s or McMahon’s intent to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>* Clarification: An earlier version of this story said that Mulligan had been terminated, but she revised a social media post about her status after publication of this story to clarify that she was not subject to the “reduction in force” notice. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-chaos-confusion-statistics-education/\">\u003cem>Institute of Education Sciences\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "serve-and-return-how-to-ensure-talking-with-young-children-to-help-them-flourish",
"title": "Serve and Return: How Talking with Young Children Helps Them Flourish",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about talking to kids was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, with support from the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://spencerfellows.org\">\u003cem>Spencer Fellowship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at Columbia Journalism School. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/earlychildhood/\">\u003cem>the Early Childhood newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — When Rickeyda Carter started teaching young children, she led story time the way she remembers being taught as a child. That meant children were expected to sit, listen — and remain silent. “When the teacher is reading, you don’t talk,” Carter recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter didn’t think anything of this approach for nearly a decade, until the program where she was employed, New Rising Star Early Childhood Development Center, opted to participate in an initiative aimed at improving the interactions between teachers and children in their care. For 10 weeks, the 3- and 4-year-olds in Carter’s classroom donned miniature vests with “talk pedometers” nestled inside, meant to track how often children and their teachers converse. Carter received weekly coaching and data on how much, when and with whom she was talking in her classroom. As she learned about the science behind why those conversations are so important, Carter realized she wanted to change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter started talking more with the children, especially during meal times and after they woke up from naps, times when the pedometers showed she wasn’t interacting with them as much. She prioritized connecting more with children getting the least attention. She revamped story time to make it more interactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m learning that it’s OK for them to interrupt in the middle of a story and ask questions,” she said. Those changes made a difference. Children quickly became more engaged in activities and seemed to learn more, Carter said, especially when it came to literacy and reading comprehension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For child care programs, the strength and frequency of these myriad interactions between a caregiver and a child are central to quality. Babies need stimulation from a caregiver who talks frequently and responds to their sounds and cues. Older children, experts say, need thoughtful questioning and responses that help develop critical thinking skills and vocabulary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65269\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65269\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Teacher and child sitting at a table in a classroom\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1904\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-800x595.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1020x758.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-768x571.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1536x1142.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-2048x1523.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1920x1428.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayla McCombs, a teacher at Hand in Hand Early Learning Program in southwest Birmingham, spends one-on-one time with a student. McCombs and her co-teacher say data on their interactions helped them hone in on children who weren’t getting as much attention during the day. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A growing number of cities, states and individual programs, including \u003ca href=\"https://info.lena.org/what-the-texas-rising-star-qris-can-tell-us-about-quality-child-care-interactions\">Texas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-10-15/vdoe-daycare-preschool-quality-measurement-program-jenna-conway\">Virginia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mississippifirst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/74/2022/12/qss-full-report-11.1.22-1-1-1.pdf\">Mississippi\u003c/a> and Washington, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/relationships-matter-how-states-can-include-teacher-child-interactions-ece-and-essa-plans/\">D.C.\u003c/a>, are pouring resources into training teachers and evaluating programs on how warm and responsive teachers are, including how tuned-in they are to the children’s needs. The trend crosses traditional political divides. Cities including Providence, Rhode Island; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Birmingham, Alabama, have funneled money into the program used in Carter’s class, created by the nonprofit LENA, which focuses on improving early talk and responsive relationships among caregivers. Large child care chains like KinderCare have revamped their teacher training programs to add a greater emphasis on teacher-child interactions. And one state, \u003ca href=\"https://education.virginia.edu/research-initiatives/research-centers-labs/edpolicyworks/edpolicyworks-research-projects/early-childhood-projects/study-early-education-louisiana\">Louisiana\u003c/a>, has gone all in, making interactions the sole focus of how it assesses child care quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the things that matter in children’s experiences in a classroom, nothing is more important than the relationships and interactions that they have with the educators and other children that they spend time with,” said Bridget Hamre, a research associate professor at the University of Virginia who co-authored an early childhood classroom scoring system that rates teacher-child interactions. Other elements of quality, like teacher education and ratios, are “only important to the degree to which they change the way that teachers interact with kids,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65270\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65270\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Children napping on cots in a preschool while teacher looks on\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1929\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-800x603.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1020x769.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-768x579.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-2048x1543.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1920x1447.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children rest at Annie Lee’s Day Care, a home-based child care program that participated in Small Magic’s program to increase conversation between teachers and children. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The type and amount of talking and play between teachers and children is critical because the brains of infants, toddlers and preschoolers develop faster during the years in which they are in child care than at any other time in their lives. Those brains grow through a process scientists have coined \u003ca href=\"https://developingchild.harvard.edu/key-concept/serve-and-return/\">serve and return\u003c/a>, when a caregiver and a child engage in back-and-forth exchanges like a “lively game of tennis,” according to researchers at Harvard University. This banter is so powerful, it helps strengthen circuits of the brain and creates the building blocks for language, social skills and other cognitive abilities. High-quality child care with nurturing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4694586/\">responsive interactions\u003c/a> can \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407821/\">positively impact\u003c/a> a child’s \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4694586/\">school readiness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13158-022-00327-w\">working memory\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://fpg.unc.edu/sites/fpg.unc.edu/files/resources/journal-articles/Improving%20Teacher-Child%20Interactions.pdf\">behavior\u003c/a>, academic development, and social and emotional skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, research has found \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9886234/#:~:text=Child%2DLevel&text=Most%20individual%20children's%20interaction%20quality,with%20the%20teacher%20on%20average.\">many caregivers\u003c/a> struggle to provide ample, responsive interactions. National data compiled by LENA, for example, found about \u003ca href=\"https://www.lena.org/qris-and-interaction/\">1 in 4 children\u003c/a> experience little attention from their caregivers, even in programs with high overall ratings on state quality scales. In infant and toddler classrooms, a third of children in the classrooms LENA has worked with experienced so few interactions per hour, they essentially spent \u003ca href=\"https://www.lena.org/classroom-language-isolation/\">the majority of their day in isolation.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Birmingham, where Carter teaches, the city has invested more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.wvtm13.com/article/city-of-birmingham-designates-1-million-in-funding-to-birmingham-talks/41771054\">$1 million\u003c/a> into a nonprofit, Small Magic, which runs a program using the LENA pedometers called “Birmingham Talks.” Since 2019, the program has coached more than 400 teachers in more than 60 child care programs in the area, including center-based and home-based settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators who have participated in the program say it’s had a deep impact. Many thought they were interacting equally with all children but realized that wasn’t true upon seeing data from the LENA devices. That’s especially the case, educators say, with children who are quieter and may not get as much attention as those who naturally speak more or who present as a behavior challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many child care providers cite the relationships with children as their favorite part of the job, but the realities of working in a child care program in America often complicate teachers’ best efforts to devote time to nurturing, one-on-one relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65272\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65272\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A poster suggesting teaching strategies\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1925\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1020x767.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-768x578.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1536x1155.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-2048x1540.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1920x1444.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster on the wall at New Rising Star Early Childhood Development Center in Birmingham, Alabama, gives educators tips on conversing more with preschoolers. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Child care teachers are often responsible for large numbers of children and paid poverty-level wages. Many are grappling with \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11251369/\">more disruptive child behavior\u003c/a> than prior to the pandemic. “The reality of being an early childhood teacher right now is so incredibly stressful,” said Hamre. “It makes it hard to prioritize those kinds of interactions when … you are supporting children who are coming in with so many challenges of their own,” she added. “Stress really reduces everybody’s capacity to invest in the kinds of relationships that matter most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many communities, the situation is getting worse, not better. As pandemic relief aid has run out, many states have turned to \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-dark-future-of-american-child-care/\">deregulation\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-dark-future-of-american-child-care/\"> efforts\u003c/a> to solve child care shortages, bringing in less-experienced workers, cutting training requirements and increasing the number of children staff can watch on their own. And while deregulation efforts are typically championed by Republicans at the state level, they’ve gotten some conservative \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/three-principles-for-conservative-early-childhood-policy/\">pushback\u003c/a>. “There are important dimensions of early-childhood education and childcare that just can’t be deregulated away. Young children need close adult supervision,” wrote \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/profile/frederick-m-hess/\">Frederick M. Hess\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/profile/michael-q-mcshane/\">Michael Q. McShane\u003c/a> of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in a 2024 early childhood policy report. “Removing regulations can certainly help on the margins, but that requirement won’t fundamentally change unless we want AI reading stories and robots monitoring playtime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Mississippi, which has one of the highest staff-to-child toddler ratios in the country, Jackson-area child care director Lesia Daniel said relationships become more challenging as the number of children increases. “Can you imagine being in a room with 12 2-year-olds who are not potty trained by yourself every day?” Daniel said. “I mean, literally all you’re doing is changing diapers and trying to keep them alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel has provided training to her staff to help them learn the nuances of how to interact most meaningfully with young children. Instead of asking a question like, “What color is your car?” Daniel said questions should nurture vocabulary development and critical thinking skills. A teacher could ask: “Who’s riding in your car? Tell me about those people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Hand in Hand Early Learning Program in southwest Birmingham, an inclusive early learning center where children with and without disabilities and developmental delays learn and play together, conversations between teachers and children are detailed and deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a fall morning, as teacher Kayla McCombs helped her pre-K students get settled in various activities around the room, one of the children summoned her to the small play kitchen in the corner of the classroom. It was an opportunity to converse one-on-one, introduce the child to vocabulary and help immerse him in deeper imaginative play than he would achieve by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are we doing?” McCombs asked as she slid into a tiny gray chair. “Are you going to cook some food?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, I’m so hungry,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me, too,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, you’re going to microwave?” McCombs asked as the child carefully placed a plastic cup inside the pretend microwave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it hot?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Be careful! Don’t burn your hands,” she replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCombs and her colleagues benefit from a smaller staff to child ratio — 1-to-6 at this age, far less than the 1-to-18 set by the \u003ca href=\"https://dhr.alabama.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/No-Highlighted-MS-for-CENTERS-revised.pdf\">state\u003c/a>. On this morning, there were two teachers in the class, as well as an assistant teacher and an occupational therapist, all working with 16 students. That meant McCombs could focus on these interactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCombs’ co-teacher, Skylar Yeager, said the data they got from wearing LENA devices revealed how some children got far less conversational time with teachers than others. Now, staff are more purposeful about prioritizing one-on-one interactions with every child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, states including Georgia, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nccp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/A-New-Approach-to-Supporting-the-Quality-of-Early-Care-and-Education-Programs-in-Arkansas_-Case-Studies-of-Array.pdf\">Arkansas\u003c/a>, Texas and Vermont are trying a wide range of ways to teach early educators about interactions and adding or expanding a\u003ca href=\"https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-10-15/vdoe-daycare-preschool-quality-measurement-program-jenna-conway\"> teacher-child interaction\u003c/a> component on state child care quality rating systems. All Our Kin, a nonprofit focused on family child care homes, sends coaches into programs in Connecticut and New York to support those providers in relationships and interactions with children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/22.1-289.05/\">Virginia\u003c/a> has taken it even further. In 2020, state officials enacted a law requiring any early learning program that receives public funding to participate in the state’s child care improvement system, which includes a teacher-child interaction scale. Teachers in all types of programs are now observed twice a year to see how meaningfully they talk to and play with children. The data has given program officials the ability to zero in on classrooms where children aren’t having good experiences and offer intensive counseling to those teachers, said Jenna Conway, Virginia’s deputy superintendent of early childhood care and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been challenges with the sweeping initiative. It involves what Conway called a mindset shift for teachers, particularly those working with infants. Some teachers fear that if they encourage more conversation, they’ll have more classroom management challenges, said Jill Gilkerson, chief research and evaluation officer at LENA. “A lot of the time, child care can be focused on behavior, and trying to make sure that there’s not a lot of rambunctiousness, keeping the level of sound down,” she said. “I think a lot of teachers will associate less talk with a more controlled environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many programs also struggle with high rates of teacher turnover, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.ffyf.org/resources/2022/05/research-shows-low-pay-is-associated-with-high-early-educator-turnover-and-poor-student-outcomes/\">disrupts relationships\u003c/a> with children. New staff then need training in how to engage most effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research out of Louisiana, the state that has done the most to prioritize interactions, provides hope that despite the challenges, that mindset shift on the part of child care teachers can improve quality. Ten years ago, under Conway’s direction, Louisiana \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/louisianas-qris-quality/\">ditched\u003c/a> its complex quality rating system in favor of a rating scale that looked \u003ca href=\"https://policyinstitutela.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Class-Matters_Increasing-Quality-in-Louisiana-Early-Childhood-Programs_final-052218.pdf\">solely at interactions\u003c/a> between children and teachers. The state also increased the amount of money providers get when they serve children from lower-income families who pay with state subsidies and funded new educator certificate and preparation programs. In the four years following these changes, researchers found a \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23328584211011610\">substantial\u003c/a> improvement across child care programs in the state when it comes to such measures as the warmth and sensitivity of teachers and the language development support they provide to children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This focus on what may seem like small, insignificant interactions has continued to positively influence other aspects of child care, Conway said. “Directors and others became smarter and more strategic about who they’re hiring,” she added. That includes recruiting educators who have the right temperament for the classroom and educating new hires on what matters under the new quality scale. For infant teachers, for example, that means, “You’re gonna talk to the baby. You’re gonna talk while you’re feeding them. You’re gonna talk while you’re diapering them,” Conway said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s those little things that I think make the difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jackie-mader/\">\u003cem>Jackie Mader\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at (212) 678-3562 or \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:mader@hechingerreport.org\">\u003cem>mader@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about talking to kids was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, with support from the Spencer Fellowship at Columbia Journalism School. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/earlychildhood/\">\u003cem>the Early Childhood newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about talking to kids was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, with support from the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://spencerfellows.org\">\u003cem>Spencer Fellowship\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at Columbia Journalism School. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/earlychildhood/\">\u003cem>the Early Childhood newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — When Rickeyda Carter started teaching young children, she led story time the way she remembers being taught as a child. That meant children were expected to sit, listen — and remain silent. “When the teacher is reading, you don’t talk,” Carter recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter didn’t think anything of this approach for nearly a decade, until the program where she was employed, New Rising Star Early Childhood Development Center, opted to participate in an initiative aimed at improving the interactions between teachers and children in their care. For 10 weeks, the 3- and 4-year-olds in Carter’s classroom donned miniature vests with “talk pedometers” nestled inside, meant to track how often children and their teachers converse. Carter received weekly coaching and data on how much, when and with whom she was talking in her classroom. As she learned about the science behind why those conversations are so important, Carter realized she wanted to change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter started talking more with the children, especially during meal times and after they woke up from naps, times when the pedometers showed she wasn’t interacting with them as much. She prioritized connecting more with children getting the least attention. She revamped story time to make it more interactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m learning that it’s OK for them to interrupt in the middle of a story and ask questions,” she said. Those changes made a difference. Children quickly became more engaged in activities and seemed to learn more, Carter said, especially when it came to literacy and reading comprehension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For child care programs, the strength and frequency of these myriad interactions between a caregiver and a child are central to quality. Babies need stimulation from a caregiver who talks frequently and responds to their sounds and cues. Older children, experts say, need thoughtful questioning and responses that help develop critical thinking skills and vocabulary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65269\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65269\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Teacher and child sitting at a table in a classroom\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1904\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-800x595.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1020x758.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-768x571.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1536x1142.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-2048x1523.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions02-1920x1428.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayla McCombs, a teacher at Hand in Hand Early Learning Program in southwest Birmingham, spends one-on-one time with a student. McCombs and her co-teacher say data on their interactions helped them hone in on children who weren’t getting as much attention during the day. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A growing number of cities, states and individual programs, including \u003ca href=\"https://info.lena.org/what-the-texas-rising-star-qris-can-tell-us-about-quality-child-care-interactions\">Texas\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-10-15/vdoe-daycare-preschool-quality-measurement-program-jenna-conway\">Virginia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mississippifirst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/74/2022/12/qss-full-report-11.1.22-1-1-1.pdf\">Mississippi\u003c/a> and Washington, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/relationships-matter-how-states-can-include-teacher-child-interactions-ece-and-essa-plans/\">D.C.\u003c/a>, are pouring resources into training teachers and evaluating programs on how warm and responsive teachers are, including how tuned-in they are to the children’s needs. The trend crosses traditional political divides. Cities including Providence, Rhode Island; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Birmingham, Alabama, have funneled money into the program used in Carter’s class, created by the nonprofit LENA, which focuses on improving early talk and responsive relationships among caregivers. Large child care chains like KinderCare have revamped their teacher training programs to add a greater emphasis on teacher-child interactions. And one state, \u003ca href=\"https://education.virginia.edu/research-initiatives/research-centers-labs/edpolicyworks/edpolicyworks-research-projects/early-childhood-projects/study-early-education-louisiana\">Louisiana\u003c/a>, has gone all in, making interactions the sole focus of how it assesses child care quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the things that matter in children’s experiences in a classroom, nothing is more important than the relationships and interactions that they have with the educators and other children that they spend time with,” said Bridget Hamre, a research associate professor at the University of Virginia who co-authored an early childhood classroom scoring system that rates teacher-child interactions. Other elements of quality, like teacher education and ratios, are “only important to the degree to which they change the way that teachers interact with kids,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65270\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65270\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Children napping on cots in a preschool while teacher looks on\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1929\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-800x603.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1020x769.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-768x579.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-2048x1543.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions03-1920x1447.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children rest at Annie Lee’s Day Care, a home-based child care program that participated in Small Magic’s program to increase conversation between teachers and children. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The type and amount of talking and play between teachers and children is critical because the brains of infants, toddlers and preschoolers develop faster during the years in which they are in child care than at any other time in their lives. Those brains grow through a process scientists have coined \u003ca href=\"https://developingchild.harvard.edu/key-concept/serve-and-return/\">serve and return\u003c/a>, when a caregiver and a child engage in back-and-forth exchanges like a “lively game of tennis,” according to researchers at Harvard University. This banter is so powerful, it helps strengthen circuits of the brain and creates the building blocks for language, social skills and other cognitive abilities. High-quality child care with nurturing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4694586/\">responsive interactions\u003c/a> can \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407821/\">positively impact\u003c/a> a child’s \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4694586/\">school readiness\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13158-022-00327-w\">working memory\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://fpg.unc.edu/sites/fpg.unc.edu/files/resources/journal-articles/Improving%20Teacher-Child%20Interactions.pdf\">behavior\u003c/a>, academic development, and social and emotional skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, research has found \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9886234/#:~:text=Child%2DLevel&text=Most%20individual%20children's%20interaction%20quality,with%20the%20teacher%20on%20average.\">many caregivers\u003c/a> struggle to provide ample, responsive interactions. National data compiled by LENA, for example, found about \u003ca href=\"https://www.lena.org/qris-and-interaction/\">1 in 4 children\u003c/a> experience little attention from their caregivers, even in programs with high overall ratings on state quality scales. In infant and toddler classrooms, a third of children in the classrooms LENA has worked with experienced so few interactions per hour, they essentially spent \u003ca href=\"https://www.lena.org/classroom-language-isolation/\">the majority of their day in isolation.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Birmingham, where Carter teaches, the city has invested more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.wvtm13.com/article/city-of-birmingham-designates-1-million-in-funding-to-birmingham-talks/41771054\">$1 million\u003c/a> into a nonprofit, Small Magic, which runs a program using the LENA pedometers called “Birmingham Talks.” Since 2019, the program has coached more than 400 teachers in more than 60 child care programs in the area, including center-based and home-based settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators who have participated in the program say it’s had a deep impact. Many thought they were interacting equally with all children but realized that wasn’t true upon seeing data from the LENA devices. That’s especially the case, educators say, with children who are quieter and may not get as much attention as those who naturally speak more or who present as a behavior challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many child care providers cite the relationships with children as their favorite part of the job, but the realities of working in a child care program in America often complicate teachers’ best efforts to devote time to nurturing, one-on-one relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65272\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65272\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A poster suggesting teaching strategies\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1925\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1020x767.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-768x578.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1536x1155.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-2048x1540.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/03/maderinteractions04-1920x1444.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster on the wall at New Rising Star Early Childhood Development Center in Birmingham, Alabama, gives educators tips on conversing more with preschoolers. \u003ccite>(Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Child care teachers are often responsible for large numbers of children and paid poverty-level wages. Many are grappling with \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11251369/\">more disruptive child behavior\u003c/a> than prior to the pandemic. “The reality of being an early childhood teacher right now is so incredibly stressful,” said Hamre. “It makes it hard to prioritize those kinds of interactions when … you are supporting children who are coming in with so many challenges of their own,” she added. “Stress really reduces everybody’s capacity to invest in the kinds of relationships that matter most.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many communities, the situation is getting worse, not better. As pandemic relief aid has run out, many states have turned to \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-dark-future-of-american-child-care/\">deregulation\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-dark-future-of-american-child-care/\"> efforts\u003c/a> to solve child care shortages, bringing in less-experienced workers, cutting training requirements and increasing the number of children staff can watch on their own. And while deregulation efforts are typically championed by Republicans at the state level, they’ve gotten some conservative \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/three-principles-for-conservative-early-childhood-policy/\">pushback\u003c/a>. “There are important dimensions of early-childhood education and childcare that just can’t be deregulated away. Young children need close adult supervision,” wrote \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/profile/frederick-m-hess/\">Frederick M. Hess\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/profile/michael-q-mcshane/\">Michael Q. McShane\u003c/a> of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in a 2024 early childhood policy report. “Removing regulations can certainly help on the margins, but that requirement won’t fundamentally change unless we want AI reading stories and robots monitoring playtime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Mississippi, which has one of the highest staff-to-child toddler ratios in the country, Jackson-area child care director Lesia Daniel said relationships become more challenging as the number of children increases. “Can you imagine being in a room with 12 2-year-olds who are not potty trained by yourself every day?” Daniel said. “I mean, literally all you’re doing is changing diapers and trying to keep them alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daniel has provided training to her staff to help them learn the nuances of how to interact most meaningfully with young children. Instead of asking a question like, “What color is your car?” Daniel said questions should nurture vocabulary development and critical thinking skills. A teacher could ask: “Who’s riding in your car? Tell me about those people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Hand in Hand Early Learning Program in southwest Birmingham, an inclusive early learning center where children with and without disabilities and developmental delays learn and play together, conversations between teachers and children are detailed and deliberate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a fall morning, as teacher Kayla McCombs helped her pre-K students get settled in various activities around the room, one of the children summoned her to the small play kitchen in the corner of the classroom. It was an opportunity to converse one-on-one, introduce the child to vocabulary and help immerse him in deeper imaginative play than he would achieve by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are we doing?” McCombs asked as she slid into a tiny gray chair. “Are you going to cook some food?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, I’m so hungry,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me, too,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, you’re going to microwave?” McCombs asked as the child carefully placed a plastic cup inside the pretend microwave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah,” he replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it hot?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Be careful! Don’t burn your hands,” she replied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCombs and her colleagues benefit from a smaller staff to child ratio — 1-to-6 at this age, far less than the 1-to-18 set by the \u003ca href=\"https://dhr.alabama.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/No-Highlighted-MS-for-CENTERS-revised.pdf\">state\u003c/a>. On this morning, there were two teachers in the class, as well as an assistant teacher and an occupational therapist, all working with 16 students. That meant McCombs could focus on these interactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCombs’ co-teacher, Skylar Yeager, said the data they got from wearing LENA devices revealed how some children got far less conversational time with teachers than others. Now, staff are more purposeful about prioritizing one-on-one interactions with every child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, states including Georgia, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nccp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/A-New-Approach-to-Supporting-the-Quality-of-Early-Care-and-Education-Programs-in-Arkansas_-Case-Studies-of-Array.pdf\">Arkansas\u003c/a>, Texas and Vermont are trying a wide range of ways to teach early educators about interactions and adding or expanding a\u003ca href=\"https://www.vpm.org/news/2024-10-15/vdoe-daycare-preschool-quality-measurement-program-jenna-conway\"> teacher-child interaction\u003c/a> component on state child care quality rating systems. All Our Kin, a nonprofit focused on family child care homes, sends coaches into programs in Connecticut and New York to support those providers in relationships and interactions with children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/22.1-289.05/\">Virginia\u003c/a> has taken it even further. In 2020, state officials enacted a law requiring any early learning program that receives public funding to participate in the state’s child care improvement system, which includes a teacher-child interaction scale. Teachers in all types of programs are now observed twice a year to see how meaningfully they talk to and play with children. The data has given program officials the ability to zero in on classrooms where children aren’t having good experiences and offer intensive counseling to those teachers, said Jenna Conway, Virginia’s deputy superintendent of early childhood care and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been challenges with the sweeping initiative. It involves what Conway called a mindset shift for teachers, particularly those working with infants. Some teachers fear that if they encourage more conversation, they’ll have more classroom management challenges, said Jill Gilkerson, chief research and evaluation officer at LENA. “A lot of the time, child care can be focused on behavior, and trying to make sure that there’s not a lot of rambunctiousness, keeping the level of sound down,” she said. “I think a lot of teachers will associate less talk with a more controlled environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many programs also struggle with high rates of teacher turnover, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.ffyf.org/resources/2022/05/research-shows-low-pay-is-associated-with-high-early-educator-turnover-and-poor-student-outcomes/\">disrupts relationships\u003c/a> with children. New staff then need training in how to engage most effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research out of Louisiana, the state that has done the most to prioritize interactions, provides hope that despite the challenges, that mindset shift on the part of child care teachers can improve quality. Ten years ago, under Conway’s direction, Louisiana \u003ca href=\"https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/louisianas-qris-quality/\">ditched\u003c/a> its complex quality rating system in favor of a rating scale that looked \u003ca href=\"https://policyinstitutela.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Class-Matters_Increasing-Quality-in-Louisiana-Early-Childhood-Programs_final-052218.pdf\">solely at interactions\u003c/a> between children and teachers. The state also increased the amount of money providers get when they serve children from lower-income families who pay with state subsidies and funded new educator certificate and preparation programs. In the four years following these changes, researchers found a \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23328584211011610\">substantial\u003c/a> improvement across child care programs in the state when it comes to such measures as the warmth and sensitivity of teachers and the language development support they provide to children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This focus on what may seem like small, insignificant interactions has continued to positively influence other aspects of child care, Conway said. “Directors and others became smarter and more strategic about who they’re hiring,” she added. That includes recruiting educators who have the right temperament for the classroom and educating new hires on what matters under the new quality scale. For infant teachers, for example, that means, “You’re gonna talk to the baby. You’re gonna talk while you’re feeding them. You’re gonna talk while you’re diapering them,” Conway said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s those little things that I think make the difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jackie-mader/\">\u003cem>Jackie Mader\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at (212) 678-3562 or \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:mader@hechingerreport.org\">\u003cem>mader@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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