Education researchers are facing layoffs, furloughs, and uncertainty about the future of their industry in the wake of the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of millions of dollars of federal education research contracts.
The executive action last week, which the administration says cut around $900 million, halted projects in schools across the country, including some that were close to being completed after years of investment.
In response, companies that lost federal research contracts are caught between pivoting to focus on other parts of their business to stay afloat in the short term, and trying to remain in a strong position to pick the canceled projects back up if the administration changes course, or is ordered to do so.
Amid that uncertainty, providers in the space are anxious about the immediate end to important research projects, and how the administration’s decisions will shape education research over the next five to 10 years.
Those in the field say there hasn’t been a drop in demand for high-quality research projects. School districts still want data-backed answers to real challenges their students and teachers face, and education companies continue to look to prove their products work with research-backed evidence.
But the dismantling of the research branch of the federal education department — the Institute of Education Sciences — creates significant new hurdles for the companies selling to districts that are looking to meet those demands.
“This comes at an inopportune time because people have been starting to pay more attention to evidence,” said Amanda Neitzel, an assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins University, whose work is focused on connecting K-12 districts with evidence-based programs.
“We fought so hard to make people ask the question: ‘Is there research? Do you have a study?’ And now there won’t be as many studies.”
Those in the K-12 market are forced to move forward without all the information they need to understand the cuts. Billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has not released a full list of canceled contracts, and the courts and lawmakers have yet to take formal action. Democratic lawmakers sent a list of 27 questions about the scope of the cuts to the U.S. Department of Education late last week.
EdWeek Market Brief spoke to researchers working on government contracts and organizations representing them to get a window into how the elimination of projects are affecting the industry and the school research they produce.
Their responses capture the widespread confusion of this moment in time and offer insights for companies about how their peers are managing the uncertainty.
Cancelled Midstream
A large part of what makes Trump’s decision to slash education research funding controversial is the way the president chose to do it, researchers say.
Advocates of a smaller federal education infrastructure have long argued that the many federal research projects are inefficient and outdated.
But others — including the researchers EdWeek Market Brief spoke with — argue that the IES was already structured in a streamlined way, with a relatively small team of federal workers competitively contracting out the actual work of running studies and collecting data across the country.
Also, they argue that simply canceling contracts midstream is ineffective because it doesn’t take into account that some projects were close to being completed.
Terminating those deals means that the school districts that partnered with researchers essentially get no helpful information or results from a project they may have poured years into developing.
Halting the projects is like ordering a meal, paying the bill, and then not getting to eat, said Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, president and CEO of Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group.
The new administration could have taken a more nuanced action that would have still accomplished the goal of downsizing contracts, such as stopping all new projects or grandfathering in the few projects that were nearly done.
“So much of this work was at the last mile,” Bell-Ellwanger said during a recent EdWeek Market Brief webinar on changes brought to the education market by the administration. “We won’t get to see the benefits of the work that was ongoing.”
Instead, the broad action means that research across many topics was stopped — not just research on topics opposed by Trump, such as DEI or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Research provider WestEd received notice on Feb. 13 that the organization’s work on its Regional Educational Laboratories projects was ending immediately, CEO Jannelle Kubinec said in an interview.
The federally-funded RELs connect researchers to state and local school districts that have put together a project request, often for research that helps inform a local initiative or response to a problem. WestEd served as the planning manager for projects in the West and Northwest regions of the country.
Among the projects that were halted: studies on math and literacy instruction, ways to improve pathways to graduation, projects looking at how to combat chronic absenteeism, and improving student engagement, Kubinec said.
Many of those subjects are areas that usually draw bipartisan support.
School district leaders were quick to share their concerns about missing out on the insights the work would have produced, Kubinec said.
“We heard very directly from districts when we notified them of the cancelation how positive they felt about the work and the impact it was having,” she said. “One of the hallmarks of this work is it … centers real-world problems with a practical application.”
Companies Staying Poised to Re-bid
Adding to the confusion for research providers is the fact that some of the canceled work was congressionally mandated, meaning lawmakers specifically called for various research projects to be completed.
Some vendors believe this means those projects will eventually be reinstated, although it’s unclear if the assumption is true or how soon it would come about.
As of publication, there has been no judicial order or involvement to address this, and experts say they would look to Congress as the body that would need to step in to reverse the cuts.
The possibility some cuts will be reversed is the reason why some companies are considering furloughs, which would allow those staff members to quickly return to work if the contracts they were assigned to are resurrected.
Kubinec said her company would be open to doing federal research again and resuming work on the contracts it lost if those projects were started again.
But her understanding is that even if any of the terminated work restarts, the contract can’t be reinstated without going through the bidding process again.
“We are waiting and seeing,” Kubinec said. “And also continuing to look for alternative options, because we know many of our partners want to continue or see their work reach some conclusion.”
WestEd is able to stay in a holding pattern because federal contracts are only one piece of its business, she said. But for many companies, the federal work stoppage presents a major challenge, and the staff reduction they’re being forced to make now will make it more difficult to quickly gear up to respond to a bid in the future.
That concern is especially true if the project resumes, but is reframed or has different priorities, which would require a different bid than the first time around.
Even more challenging for vendors is how they will maintain the capacity to do federal research projects over the next four years, while not knowing if the next presidential administration will share Trump’s priorities or take a different approach.
Another consideration: If education companies lay off staff because of the ongoing cuts, those experts won’t necessarily still be available when the tides change, multiple people told EdWeek Market Brief.
It could take years to build back up to the current capacity for large-scale scientific research projects.
Felice Levine, executive director of the American Educational Research Association, asked the research organizations her group represents to share the impacts on their business. In a few days, she had over 100 examples of their work being disrupted.
“What I’m hearing of staff reductions: It’s deep and real,” she said. “Some of these smaller and flexible organizations won’t exist to return to.”
Alternative Options
In the meantime, companies working in the education space — especially major players — will likely be the ones with the most incentives and resources to pull off research projects.
Researchers agree that states and individual districts likely don’t have room in their already tight budgets to fund research at this scale, although they may look to pay for a few projects they see as most critical.
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But district clients will still ask companies for proof that a product or service is high quality — a big incentive to make sure the research exists. Over the past decade, the industry has seen a growing interest in evidence, with more and more top district officials asking specifically for scientifically-backed data before making a purchase.
If the federal government permanently cuts its investment in research, education companies will likely need to invest in the research themselves in order to get up-to-date evidence on their products, and what works in schools.
That comes with its own set of concerns, since work commissioned by a single provider is inherently biased — something the federal education department worked to correct by upholding independent research.
The demand for strong evidence won’t disappear just because of an executive order, however, said Steven Ross, director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
His organization, which includes the Evidence For ESSA website, does not have federal contracts and was not impacted directly by the wave of terminations.
“The marketplace will remain the marketplace — schools are going to need new solutions,” he said. “We need evidence to make good decisions for our students and teachers. So that’s what we’re all trying to do.”