Recent staffing and budget cuts at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) threaten the nation’s capacity to generate and use high-quality education research—just when states, districts, and educators need it most to confront today’s urgent challenges. IES, the federal science agency within the U.S. Department of Education (ED), suffered the steepest staffing cuts of any office within ED—losing about 90 percent of its workforce since January 2025—and faces a proposed 67 percent budget reduction for fiscal year 2026. These actions, part of the Trump Administration’s broader effort to “Return Authority to the States,” risk dismantling a nonpartisan institution that has long empowered, not controlled, state and local education decision-making.
A robust bipartisan consensus that included the President (George W. Bush) and Congress led to the establishment of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA). Through this act, Congress deliberately designed IES to operate independently and free from political influence. For more than two decades, IES has advanced rigorous, field-informed research and data systems that help educators make evidence-based decisions—from early childhood through postsecondary education.
Before this work is allowed to erode, the public has a narrow window to act. The Request for Information (RFI) on how to modernize IES offers a timely opportunity to preserve and strengthen this essential public institution. Public comments are due by October 15, 2025.
With a budget roughly one-fiftieth that of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), IES has accomplished extraordinary things. Based on our experience and expertise as former Program Officers within IES’s National Center for Education Research (NCER), below are six significant areas in which IES built a strong foundation of education research and improvement that should be used to inform any redesign of IES.
- Gold-Standard Federal and State Data Systems. The National Center for Education Statistics produces the most trusted data on student achievement and school performance (e.g. National Assessment of Educational Progress, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, High School Longitudinal Study, Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study) and has helped states build their own longitudinal data systems through the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grants program (SLDS). These data guide policy and practice at every level of education.
- Identifying What Works in Literacy, Math, and Science. NCER helps educators and policy-makers identify programs, practices, and policies that work (or do not), ensuring research leads to real-world impact for students. NCER accomplishes this through a balance of research grants that address Congressionally-mandated topics (see item 3 below) and field-initiated research inquiries such as those focused on the science of reading, early math instruction, algebra programs and policies, and inquiry-based science. Most notably, the highly touted “Mississippi Miracle” was made possible by research supported by IES. It is important to note that all grants funded by NCER are reviewed by experts in the field using a process modeled after NIH to ensure only the highest quality research is funded.
- Supporting Research on Congressionally Mandated Topics. NCER has consistently funded at least eight National Research and Development (R&D) Centers, each one advancing research on topics mandated by Congress. The R&D Centers have become hubs of innovation and influence—connecting states, schools, and researchers to produce actionable, policy-relevant research that drives improvement in teaching and learning. The latest R&D Center cohort exemplifies this mission, advancing work on critical topics such as the use of generative artificial intelligence to support teaching and learning, improving rural education, and K-12 teacher recruitment and retention policies.
- Advancing Innovation through Education Technology. IES’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has invested over $90 million to help small businesses develop and scale evidence-based learning tools. In a recent analysis of the program, IES SBIR funded products have had 130 million users and generated $830M in revenue.
- Building Partnerships for Policy-Relevant Research. IES has supported collaborations between researchers and education agencies to find solutions to local challenges (such as through the Regional Educational Laboratories) and to evaluate larger policies and programs—from states’ teacher licensure policies to college systems’ success initiatives—ensuring rigorous evidence informs local decision-making. Research-practice partnerships not only support educators in collecting and using data but also builds their own capacity to sustain an evidence-based approach.
- Communicating Research to Educators and Policymakers. Clear and accessible communication of research findings to educators and decision-makers is central to the mission of IES. Recently, critics have identified dissemination as one of IES’s major weaknesses. Yet, IES’s efforts in this area must be understood within the boundaries of its Congressional mandate (ESRA), which explicitly prohibits federal involvement in directing or endorsing curriculum, instruction, or the use of state and local resources. Rather than directing practice, IES empowers educators, researchers, and policymakers by ensuring that high-quality, unbiased evidence is freely available to all through IES’s Public Access Policy, and through resources developed by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (e.g., What Works Clearinghouse, ERIC).
Addressing the need to improve online resources and communications, IES recently initiated a large-scale digital modernization effort, aiming to more effectively meet its statutory requirement to conduct “wide dissemination activities in areas of demonstrated national need.” Unfortunately, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) abruptly terminated the contract to fully implement IES’s digital modernization plan in February 2025, as part of its broad contract-cutting actions at ED and IES. Despite this setback, IES continues to make education research findings and resources accessible to teachers, administrators, and policymakers nationwide, while maintaining its Congressionally required neutrality regarding curriculum mandates.
Behind every successful IES grant, contract, study, or data collection effort are the dedicated staff of IES—career professionals who ensure taxpayer funds are used effectively and that research meets the highest levels of scientific standards. The recent cuts, which have left only about 10 percent of IES staff in place, have effectively crippled IES’s ability to meet its Congressionally mandated mission and sustain the excellence it has demonstrated for over two decades. Although our own roles as NCER Program Officers were cut short, our commitment to the mission of IES endures. We remain steadfast in championing the IES mission of supporting high quality research on education programs and practices that support learning and improve academic achievement and access to educational opportunities for all students.
Over its 22-year history, IES has delivered on its promise: building a robust, nonpartisan infrastructure for evidence-based decision-making in education. From national data collections to groundbreaking literacy research, from innovative partnerships to proven technology solutions, IES has helped educators, states, and districts make informed choices grounded in science, not ideology.
As stakeholders respond to the current RFI, the focus must not be on rebuilding IES from scratch—but on preserving and strengthening the evidence-based foundation that IES has already built.
With that in mind, there are things that need to change at IES to make the work more responsive and relevant to needs on the ground, to better support innovation, and to support the scaling of evidence-based practices, policies, and programs. Potential opportunities for modernizing IES include:
- Rebuild Human Capital and Institutional Expertise. Establish a multi-year plan to rebuild staff capacity (including but not limited to re-hiring former IES staff), emphasizing expertise in data science, AI in education, implementation research, and psychometrics (including methods that measure knowledge, skills, and progress of students and educators beyond traditional standardized tests). Partner with universities, think tanks, and other federal science agencies (e.g., National Science Foundation, Bureau of Labor Statistics) to create IES Fellowships or Visiting Scholar programs to rapidly infuse technical expertise.
- Modernize Digital Infrastructure and Communication. Relaunch a digital transformation initiative to make the IES website more interactive, accessible, and visually navigable. Invest in up-to-date digital grant and contract monitoring systems that facilitate efficient communication and internal decisionmaking.
- Facilitate Educator Input. IES should play an active role in soliciting input from educators at all levels, from teachers to state education leaders, regarding key research questions and agenda items. Dedicated staffing and technical support, along with streamlined approval processes for such meetings, could facilitate broad and frequent convenings of educators.
- Promote Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships. Expand incentives or requirements for partnerships between researchers, educators, and policymakers in all major grant programs. Introduce new funding mechanisms focused on scaling up proven interventions within state and district contexts.
- Staff a Dedicated Communications Team. Instead of assigning all communication and dissemination responsibilities to a single individual (i.e., the IES Communications Director), IES needs to commit resources to fully staff a Communications office within IES to support IES program officers with disseminating findings from funded research.
- Reinforce Independence and Scientific Integrity. Strengthen and publicly communicate IES’s authority to set its research agenda free from political interference.
- Update ESRA. The current legislation outlining the mission and structure of IES has not been updated since it was established in 2002. Any large scale modernization and restructuring of IES will require revisions to the law with bipartisan support, along with a budget commensurate with the scale of work assigned to IES.
