“If that data is divided among multiple federal agencies,” Cheng said, “there will probably be more bureaucratic hurdles needed to combine the data.”
Information sharing between federal agencies is notoriously cumbersome, the same problem that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11.
Hiring and $4.5 million in new research grants
Although the Trump administration publicly insists that it intends to close the Department of Education, it is quietly rebuilding small parts of it behind the scenes.
In September, the department published eight new jobs to replace laid-off staff who oversaw the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the biennial test of American student achievement. In November he announced four more vacancies for statisticians within the Federal Student Aid Office. Still, nothing is expected to be quick or easy. The government shutdown halted hiring for NAEP jobs and a new Trump administration board must now be formed. hiring committees before November 17 approving and filling vacant positions may further delay these hires.
At the same time, demolition continues. Less than two weeks after the Oct. 1 government shutdown, 466 additional Department of Education employees were laid off, in addition to the approximately 2,000 lost since March 2025 due to layoffs and voluntary departures. (The department employed about 4,000 people at the start of the Trump administration.) a federal judge blocked these latest layoffs on October 15.
There are also other small new signs of life. On September 30, just before the shutdown, the department quietly granted nine new research and development grants for a total of 4.5 million dollars. The grants, listed on the department’s website, are part of a new initiative called “Scale Seedling Grant Program”(S2S), launched by the Biden administration in August 2024 to test whether the Department of Defense’s DARPA-style innovation model could work in education. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, invests in new technologies for national security. His most famous project became the basis of the Internet.
Each new project, focused primarily on AI-powered personalized learning, was awarded $500,000 to produce early evidence of its effectiveness. Recipients include universities, research organizations and educational technology companies. Projects that show promise could be eligible for future funding to scale up with more students.
According to a person familiar with the program who spoke on background, the nine projects had been selected before President Donald Trump took office, but formal awards were delayed amid turmoil at the department. The Institute of Education Sciences, which lost about 90 percent of its staff, was one of the hardest hit divisions.
Admittedly, $4.5 million is a rounding error compared to IES’ official annual budget of $800 million. Still, these are believed to be the first new federal grants for educational research of the Trump era and a weak sign that Washington may not be abandoning educational innovation entirely.
This story about risks to federal education data was produced by The Hechinger Reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Enroll in Test points and others Hechinger Newsletters.
