The Trump administration has ended more than $ 900 million in education department contracts, which removes a key data on the quality and performance of the country’s schools.
The cuts were made at the request of the Elon Musk cost reduction team, the government’s ministry for efficiency, and were disclosed on X, the social media platform that Musk has, little Time after the owner asked questions to the American staff of the Department of Education on the decision to decimate the research and statistics research of the Agency, the Institute of Education Sciences.
A spokesperson for the department, Madi Biedermann, said that the standardized test known as the country’s Bulletin, the national evaluation of educational progress, would not be affected. The college dashboard, which allows people to search and compare information on colleges, she said.
IES is one of the largest donors in the country of research in education, and the reduction of contracts could mean a significant loss of public knowledge on schools. The Institute maintains a massive database of education statistics and contracts with scientists and education companies to compile and make public data on schools each year, such as information on crime and security school and secondary school courses.
Its total annual budget is around $ 815 million, or around 1% of the overall education budget of $ 82 billion this exercise. The $ 900 million in annulment contracts include multi -year agreements.
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The vast draft data represents a large part of what we know about the state of 130,000 American schools, and without a national data and statistics benchmark, it will be more difficult for parents and educators to follow the schools or compare students’ success through states.
There has been a federal agency on education statistics since 1867, although the current iteration was created in 2002 under President George W. Bush. The congress puts aside the financing of the work of the Institute.
Biedermann, assistant deputy secretary of the communications department, told Propublica that she could not provide details on canceled contracts, saying that “my understanding is that we do not publish specific information”.
But she said that there were 90 contracts which had been identified as “waste, fraud and abuse”. She said that canceling them was “in accordance with the ministry’s objective to ensure that it is focused on significant learning” and “ensure that taxpayers’ funds are used in an appropriate manner”.
She directed a journalist to the DOGE account on X for more details.
DOGE wrote in an article: “Also, the Ministry of Education also terminated 89 contracts worth $ 881 million. An entrepreneur was paid $ 1.5 million to “observe shipping and office operations” in a mail center. »»
The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed the desire to “return” the responsibility of schools to the States, although the governments of the States and premises already control the largest share of financing for education. There is no national program; States and districts decide what to teach and dictate their own policies.
The American Institutes for Research, a non -profit organization that conducts research in education and other areas, said on Monday that it had received dismissal notices for several current contracts, and that annul them would be early a bad financial decision.
“This is an incredible waste of dollars of taxpayers, which have been invested – according to the Congress credits and many according to specific legislation – in data collection and long -standing analysis efforts, and assessments Politicians and programs, “said spokesperson Dana Tofig in an email. The non -profit organization has followed a contract with the ministry for years.
Schools and districts across the country are counting on research from ies and entrepreneurs such as American Institutes for Research to guide best practices in classrooms.
“These investments inform the entire education system at all levels on the state of education and the distribution of students, teachers and resources in school districts across America,” said TOFIG.
“If the objective of these cuts is to ensure that the dollars of taxpayers are not wasted and well used, the evaluation and the work of data which has been terminated is exactly the work which determines which programs are effective uses Federal dollars and which are not. “”
Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, castigated the contract layoffs to the IES. “An unadred billionaire is now the research arm of the Ministry of Education- taking a demolition ball in search of high quality and the basic data we need to improve our public schools,” he She declared in a press release. “The reduction of these investments after the contract has already been inked is the definition of waste.”
We continue to report on the United States Ministry of Education. Are you an ancient or current employee of the Department of Education? Are you a student or an employee of the school affected by changes in the department? You can reach our peak line on the signal at 917-512-0201. Please be as precise, detailed and clear as possible.
