Education Department cuts agency that compiles 'Nation's Report Card' and measures student performance

Source: ABC News

March 12, 2025, 9:10 PM


The Department of Education's far-reaching layoffs have decimated a small statistical agency considered to be the "authoritative and trusted source" of information on the education system in the United States, four former employees familiar with the situation told ABC News.

Since the 1860s, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has collected and analyzed data on education across the country, which has been used by policymakers and the public to measure academic success, teacher productivity and crime and safety in schools, among other topics.

It issues a congressionally mandated test called the National Assessment of Education Progress -- better known as the "Nation's Report Card" -- which, since 1969, has been considered the gold standard of testing to compare the academic performance and progress of students across all 50 states in math and reading across several grades. But as of this week, nearly all of the agency's 130 staffers have been fired, according to the former employees, gutting the agency and raising questions about how it can continue its work to measure the performance of the country's 18,000 school districts and efficacy of any policy changes.

"We are baffled, because thought that we would be spared, that we would be moved, because our work is mandated by law," one statistician with more than a decade of experience at the agency told ABC News. "We thought any administration would want to measure how successful their policies are."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/education-department-cuts-agency-compiles-nations-report-card/story?id=119735831