A draft enforcement order for the removal of the educational department was prepared in early March, but Trump had not signed it last week. Instead, McMahon said of Fox News That she begins to fire employees as a “first step” to this elimination. Former employees of the department believe that McMahon and her team have decided which offices to reduce. Weeks before her confirmation, about half a dozen people from the former McMahon Brain Trust, the right America First Political InstituteThey were inside the department and examined the bureaucracy, according to a former employee of the education department. The education department did not answer my email requests.
Mass shooting this month was preceded on February 10, when the Elon Musk Government Ministry of Government Efficiency terminate much of the work This has been observed by these units for research and statistics on education. Most of the research and collection of data from the department are carried out by external contractors, and nearly 90 of these contracts have been canceled, including vital events of students and teachers. The distribution of approximately $ 16 billion in federal aid I for the help of low -income schools cannot be calculated correctly without this data. Now statistics who know how to perform the complex formula is also gone.
“Five alarm fire”
The mass dismissals and cancellation of contracts stunned many. “This is a fire with five alarms burning statistics that we need to understand and improve education,” says Andrew Ho, Psychometric from Harvard University and President of the National Education Measurement Council, In social mediaS
Former NSK Commissioner Jack Buckley, who heads the Education Statistics Division from 2010 to 2015, described the destruction as “surreal”. “I’m just sad,” Buckley said. “Everyone has the right to their own political ideas, but no one has the right 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 doesn’t feel like this is the world we live in now. “
The deepest cuts
While other units in the education department have lost more employees in the absolute number, IES has lost the highest percentage of employees – approximately 90 percent of their workforce. The education researchers have asked why the Trump administration is aimed at research and statistics. “All this feels as part of an attack on universities and science,” says a professor of education at a large research university who has demanded not to be identified for fear of revenge.
This fear is well justified. Earlier this month the Trump administration Canceled $ 400 million In federal treaties and grants with Colombian University, accusing the university’s inability to protect Jewish students from anti -Semitism during the campus protests last year over Israeli attacks against Gaza. Among them were four research grants issued by IES, including an assessment of the effectiveness of the federal work program, which costs the government $ 1 billion a year. This five -year study was close to graduation and now the public will not learn the results. (S)Hachinger’s report is an independent news organization at the Teachers College, Colombian University.))
Tom Brock, CEO of the Community Research Center at Teachers’ College, Columbia University, said he was cautiously optimistic that he could successfully appeal his $ 2.8 million for grants. (He plans to claim that the Teacher’s College is a separate entity from the rest of Colombia with his own president and reverie of the present and has not been influenced by student protests to the same degree.) But now the IES service, which has issued the grants, the National Education Research Center has lost its staff. “I’m very discouraged,” Brock said. “Even if we win on appeal, all employees are fired. Who would restore the grant? Who would we report? Who would watch it? They have completely eliminated the infrastructure. I could imagine a scenario where we will win at the appeal and it cannot be put into force. “
Active contracts
Many contracts with external data collection organizations and research grants with university professors remain active. This includes the national assessment of educational progress, which tracks students’ achievements, and the integrated post -contributory data system (IPEDS), which collects data on colleges and universities. But now there are almost no employees to monitor these efforts, review them for accuracy, or sign future contracts for new data collection and research.
“It was my job to make sure that limited public dollars for education research were spent as well as possible,” said a former education officer who has issued a gratuitous funds for the development of new innovations. “We make sure there is no fraud, waste and abuse. Now there is no guard to watch him. “
The former employee asked to remain anonymous, as well as more than a dozen other former employees I talked to while reporting this story. Some have explained that the conditions of their termination, called “reduction of power” or “rif”, may mean a loss of compensation if they talk to the press. The terminated employees are believed to work from home until the last day of March 21 and they described limited access to their work computer systems. These are the stimulating efforts to end their work with their colleagues and external performers in a tidy way. One described how she had to take a photo of her mobile phone for her notice to end her laptop because she can no longer save or send documents on it.
So far, there has been no sign of protest among Republicans in Congress, although some of the abbreviations have influenced the data and studies they have imposed. Говорител на сенатор Бил Касиди, републиканец на Луизиана и председател на Сенатския комитет по здравеопазване, образование, труд и пенсии, ме насочи към изявлението на Касиди за X. „Разговарях с @edsecmcmahon и тя даде да се разбере, че това няма да окаже влияние върху способността за изпълнение на способността да изпълнява способността си за изпълнение на способността си. This action is aimed at fulfilling the purpose of the administrator to deal with the surplus and ineffectiveness in the federal government. “
After the law
In theory, skeletal staff may be able to comply with the law, which is often “ambiguous”, said former NSS Commissioner Buckley. For example, an annual Congress report on the state of education can be as short as one page. The laws are mentioned by several collections of data, such as such as financial assistance for college students and the experience of teachers, but often do not specify how often they need to be produced. Technically, they could be broken for many years without appearing on the statute.
The remaining skeleton crew can outsource contracts to external organizations to do all the work and make them “supervise themselves,” Buckley said. “I do not stand up for the fact that the supervision will be pushed to the performers, but you can do it in theory. It depends on your tolerance to negotiate a job. “
Naep anxiety
Many are alarmed by the future of NAEP, also known as a report card of the nation. Even before the dismissal William Bennett, the secretary of education with President Ronald Reagan, wrote Open letter Together with the conservative commentator Chester Finn in the 74th, calling for McMahon to keep the NRA, calling it “the only most important activity of the department.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat who chairs the National Governor Association, is particularly concerned. In the email spokesman, Polis stressed that Polis believes that “Naep is critical.” He warned that “undercutting data collecting and eliminating this purpose measuring rod that helps countries understand and improve efficiency, it will only make our efforts difficult.”
Although much of the development and administration of tests are agreed by private organizations and companies, it is not clear how these contracts can be signed and controlled by the education department with such reduced staff. Some employees have suggested that the National Governing Board for Evaluation (NAGB), which defines the NAEP policy, to take over the test administration. But current Council staff has no experience in testing or psychometry to do so.
In response to questions, board members refused to comment on the future of NAEP and whether any of the Trump administration had asked them to take it. A former education employee believes that there is an “obvious confusion” in the Trump administration on the division of labor between NAGB and NCES and a “misunderstanding of how the work is done”.
Mark Schneider, A Former Ies Director Who Is Now A Senior Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute, Said He Hoped That McMahon Wood Rebuild Nces Into A Modern, More Effic Collect Data More Cheaply and Quickly, and Redirect Ies’s Research Division to Drive Breakthrough Innovations Like The The Ministry of Defense hasS But he admitted that McMahon has also cut off some of the offices that will be needed to modernize bureaucracy, such as the Centralized Public Procurement Service.
So far, there are no signs of Trump or McMahon’s intention to recover.
