The Institute of Education Sciences lost 88 percent of its staff and saw nearly every research contract canceled during recent cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recruited Amber M. Northern, senior vice president for research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, to devise a proposal for rebuilding IES. Northern's report, Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences, recommends that IES focus on "the most urgent education challenges, informed by state and district leaders" rather than spreading resources across disconnected projects.
Kenneth Shores, an associate professor at the University of Delaware School of Education, supports Northern's call for a focused research agenda but argues that IES should also develop mechanisms to identify and address questions of national importance that may not bubble up from states and districts. Northern contends that prioritizing "national questions" would move IES toward a politicized path outside its core mission.
The core disagreement centers on purpose: Should IES primarily help practitioners solve concrete problems they identify, or should it also function as a national research institution with its own strategic agenda?
Shores points to three developments already affecting K-12 schools, artificial intelligence, demographic decline, and policies enabling greater pluralism in publicly funded education, as examples of forces that generate urgent local demands but also raise nationally consequential questions requiring federal research leadership. He argues IES should develop "the expertise and institutional capacity to discern when scattered local pressures reflect a larger national problem, when that problem warrants federal attention, and how inquiry should be organized over time and across IES centers."
Northern's proposal maintains the status of the National Center for Education Statistics, treats the National Assessment of Educational Progress as a central federal responsibility, supports multi-state collaboration, and calls for measurable national research objectives. Shores supports these features but contends they should be combined with an explicit national-interest mission inside IES that includes a protocol for identifying nationally significant questions and ensuring continuity across presidential administrations.