The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has urged the Trump Administration to spare the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) from its planned dismemberment of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), IES being the research and data collection wing of ED. In a March 31, 2025, article, the NAS wrote:
Much of what ED does is useless or counterproductive. IES actually produces useful material. The National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is particularly useful. Whatever the ultimate disposition of ED, we believe that much of IES ought to be preserved in some administrative home.
If the U.S. Education Department dissolves and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) must move, the U.S. Census Bureau would serve as a more logical destination than the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which the NAS suggests. NCES and the Census Bureau have often worked together in the past, with the Census Bureau responsible for much of the data collection on which NCES relies. Though many may be unaware, the Census Bureau does most of the actual survey work—i.e., sampling, interviewing, data collecting, and cleaning—for the Education Department’s K-12 data.[1]
I agree with NAS that most non-political and non-ideological data collection efforts should continue. But the IES is more than just the NCES. Its other components manage more subjective work.
