April 2025
With the enactment of a full-year continuing resolution for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 (see March 2025 AERA Highlights story), work is underway on the Trump administration’s budget request and appropriations for FY 2026. The FY 2026 budget request is expected to include drastic cuts across the federal government, including for agencies that support vital infrastructure for education research and statistics. Congress is also beginning its processes for FY 2026, with House and Senate appropriations committees providing guidance for submitting programmatic and language requests and holding hearings.
In shifting to FY 2026, AERA has taken actions throughout March and April to note the continued need for federal investment in education research and statistics.
On April 7, AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine submitted testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education on FY 2026 funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The testimony noted the context in which the FY 2026 process is unfolding, including the contract cancellations that have effectively halted nearly all work within IES, reductions in force undertaken across the Department of Education and NIH, and the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
“The $900 million requested [in AERA’s testimony] would support the full reinstatement of these contracts to support this work, and for staff aligned with the activities that are mandated in the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) with IES’s establishment within the Department of Education,” wrote Levine. “It is critical for this subcommittee to continue to invest in this important agency so that we can understand what is happening in our nation’s schools and know what does and does not work to inform policies and practices to improve educational outcomes.”
The testimony also included a call for attention to the work of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), including its role in longitudinal surveys and administrative data collections that are used in research and have no equivalent as a source for nationally representative data and variables. The testimony also called attention to NCES’s authority under ESRA to administer the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and report on its results.
“It is essential that subcommittee report language accompanying investment in the Assessment line note the importance for NCES, as the Department’s federal statistical agency, to conduct NAEP activities to ensure the validity, reliability, objectivity, and accuracy of results highlighting student achievement at the national and state levels,” wrote Levine
The testimony also included a request for $51.303 billion for the National Institutes of Health, with $1.891 billion for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and a proportional increase for the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). The testimony also highlighted prior language in accompanying explanatory statements for funding for firearm injury and mortality prevention research supported by NIH.
“We urge the subcommittee to maintain funding for this important research as gun violence remains prevalent, including within school settings and in communities across the nation,” wrote Levine.
AERA will continue to take action on FY 2026 funding, particularly with the expected release of a full budget request in May. In addition, AERA has joined letters with the following funding requests for FY 2026: