December 2023

On December 6, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the American Statistical Association (ASA) sent a letter to the leadership of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee with more than 70 signatories urging revisions to the Advancing Research in Education Act (AREA). HELP Committee leaders Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) introduced the legislation and held a markup hearing of the bill on December 12 (see related Highlights story). The letter was issued on behalf of organizations, former heads of statistical agencies and U.S. chief statisticians, deans of schools of education, and individuals.  

AREA retains many of the current provisions in the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) that govern the work of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in particular. One notable change would be the shift of the authority to appoint the NCES commissioner from the U.S. president to the IES director. The proposed legislative change mirrors the appointment process for the other commissioners within IES.  The core concern underlying the sign-on letter is that the other centers do not have the same authorities and legislative responsibilities as does NCES as a primary federal statistical agency.

“Rather than strengthening or retaining language that would allow NCES to function in the intended manner for a federal statistical agency, the current draft further constrains NCES and introduces one unnecessary change [dropping the Presidential appointment] that would be counterproductive,” the letter stated.

The letter encouraged Senate HELP leadership to grant NCES control of its statistical and professional operations so that it can provide timely, relevant, objective, and trustworthy statistics, and to maintain the current presidential appointment of the NCES commissioner.

As a basis for these recommendations, the letter highlighted recent actions that seek to strengthen the role of trustworthy data from federal statistical agencies in policymaking through the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act and accompanying regulations. The letter also cited a 2022 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics—which included recommendations for NCES to have authority over decisions on agency data collections, and for the NCES commissioner, IES director, and education secretary to ensure that NCES has the authority to carry out the four fundamental responsibilities of a federal statistical agency.

Editor’s note: This topic will continue to be reported on in Highlights as the IES reauthorization continues in the Senate and House.