Chalkbeat Ideas is a section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.If there was one thing the Education Department did that seemed apolitical and effective, it was compiling basic facts about American schools. But now the work of disseminating this information has effectively ground to a halt. Since the Trump administration decimated the research arm of the Education Department, it has not updated a large swath of data that is part of the Digest of Education Statistics. This means we no longer have easily accessible, relatively up-to-date information about the basic realities of American schools.“The role of the national government is to collect statistics on K-12 [education],” said Amber Northern, the Fordham Institute’s vice president for research who is on contract with the Education Department to suggest ways to improve its statistical work. “Absolutely the Digest is integral to that. And we need to get it restarted.” Ellen Keast, a department spokesperson, said in a statement that this process has begun and a new contract for the work will be awarded before the end of this fiscal year in September.Until that happens, our shared knowledge about schools will continue to deteriorate.Consider just a handful of examples of data tables that have not been updated since at least January 2025:Spending and revenue per public school studentFederal funding for educationSchool enrollment among children ages 3-5The share of students receiving special education services, qualifying as English learners, and participating in gifted and talented programsThe typical student-to-teacher ratio The number of people enrolled in teacher prep programs Teachers’ perceptions about the quality of their schoolsAverage teacher salaryHow often school principals leave their jobsHow many students take the SAT and ACTThe number of homicides and suicides in schoolsThe rate of disciplinary incidents in public schoolsThe share of recent high school graduates immediately enrolling in collegeThe stale data is not surprising. DOGE canceled Education Department contracts for this work in February of last year. Most of the staff members at the research and statistics arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, were also laid off.Keast, the department spokesperson, notes that key data collection about schools has continued. But since the raw data has often not been turned into accessible tables, it is difficult for the public to access or use it.Tom Snyder, who oversaw the Digest and other annual reports until he retired in 2020, says this work has been widely used. Some tables might get thousands of citations in a single month. “This I would put as an inherent government responsibility to get information into the public’s hands,” Snyder said. “It needs to be accessible.” Some of this information can still be found from other sources, like school spending figures in a different federal report or teacher salary numbers from the National Education Association. Even in these cases, the Digest serves two functions: It is a one-stop shop of reliable data, and it often features results over a long time horizon. Still other information is no longer available to update at all. The Trump administration has canceled surveys about crime and safety in school, high school coursetaking, and the experiences of teachers and principals.The federal government has been collecting and sharing basic facts about schools since 1870; the Digest of Education Statistics began in 1962. The Digest has marshaled a vast array of data to offer a comprehensive picture of the sprawling, decentralized American system of education. This work forms the basis of what we know about schools in both the past and present. One widely cited department report, “120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait,” documents the growth of high school education, the opening up of schooling to Black children, and reformulation of school funding systems.Northern recently released a report defending the necessity of the Education Department’s research and statistics work but recommending a number of changes. Her report does not mention the Digest by name. Northern told me there’s clear value in it, although she would like the data released more quickly.Meanwhile, a recent analysis estimated that nearly $300 million allocated by Congress for the Institute of Education Sciences is at risk of going unspent. “The Department is committed to using appropriated funds to meet our statutory obligations while supporting high-quality research,” said Keast, the spokesperson.Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.
