Back to the Dark Ages – Trump Cuts Cripple U.S. Education Research

The Trump administration’s sweeping budget reductions have sent shockwaves through the U.S. education research community. What began as a quiet policy shift in February has now escalated into a full-scale disruption—slashing funding, terminating contracts, and laying off thousands of federal education researchers. At the center of the upheaval is a campaign driven by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, that aims to trim what it views as “activist” or ideologically biased research.

For scholars like Mark Warschauer, a respected education professor at UC Irvine and director of the Digital Learning Lab, the consequences are personal and professional. His federally funded research on bilingual e-books using artificial intelligence to support English learners was abruptly canceled in late April—along with hundreds of other projects nationwide.

A Blow to Education Innovation and Equity

Warschauer’s work is emblematic of the kind of research now at risk: cutting-edge, tech-driven, and equity-focused. His lab was collaborating with organizations like PBS Kids to build AI-powered tools that not only taught reading but engaged families of English learners in home-based learning.

“I could go from having a well-funded research lab… to pretty much drying up in a few years and needing to lay off everyone working for me,” Warschauer said.

Without NSF funding, initiatives that had proven to boost literacy and science knowledge among marginalized groups may never reach the scale needed to make systemic impact.

What’s Been Cut—and Why

Since February, the Trump administration has:

• Cancelled scores of grants from the National Science Foundation’s education division
• Severed contracts from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the Education Department
• Laid off roughly 90% of IES staff, eliminating decades of institutional knowledge
• Placed the future of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in question

The justification? A belief that too many projects are aligned with “woke” ideologies or critical theory.

Critics argue that this is a politically motivated attack on evidence-based education, dressed in the language of efficiency.

“We’re not promoting ideology. We’re promoting outcomes,” Warschauer said, defending his nonpartisan research focus.

Impact on Education Policy and Practice

The fallout from these cuts is already rippling through the education system:

Key Resource at Risk	Function	Potential Impact
What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)	Curates research on effective education practices	Districts may lose trusted guidance on interventions
Longitudinal Data Sets	Tracks trends like literacy rates, school choice, outcomes	Researchers lose ability to assess long-term policy impact
NAEP (The Nation’s Report Card)	Only consistent national benchmark of K–12 student achievement	Could compromise ability to compare state and national trends

Additionally, the uncertainty is driving young scholars out of the field, threatening a brain drain in education research just as AI, literacy, and post-pandemic learning loss demand more attention—not less.

A Legal and Political Showdown

Some halted contracts have quietly been reinstated, and new leadership has been introduced to steady the ship. But a recent Supreme Court ruling effectively authorized the mass layoffs, leaving little hope that the broader research infrastructure will recover anytime soon.

“This isn’t just about funding. It’s about the future of evidence-based decision-making in U.S. education,” said one former IES staffer.

Experts now see the current trajectory as potentially leading to the dismantling of the Education Department’s research function altogether—a move that would mark a seismic shift in how the federal government supports learning across the country.

FAQs