March 2025

On March 10, the Department of Education announced a reduction in force (RIF) among its workforce, resulting in laying off half of the staff across the Department. The RIF had a disproportionately significant impact on the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), whose staff was reduced from about 170 to approximately 20.

Nearly all staff within IES’s National Center for Education Research (NCER) and National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) were included in the RIF, though it did not include NCER Commissioner Elizabeth Albro or NCEE Commissioner Matthew Soldner, who also remains in his capacity as acting director of IES.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was reduced to three staff, with the acting commissioner of NCES, Chris Chapman, among those included in the RIF. In addition, staff involved with the administration and data reporting for the National Assessment of Educational Progress were part of the RIF.

Staff with the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) and the IES Office of Science were not reportedly part of the RIF.

“AERA condemns the administration's staff firing and assault on the mandated purposes of the U.S. Department of Education,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Silence does not change the reality: Education data, statistics, research, and vital people at NCES/IES are now gone. NCES contracts and people obliterated. We urge Congress to embrace bipartisanship, step in, and act on its Constitutional responsibilities to the nation.”

The actions at the Department of Education are likely to be replicated elsewhere as federal agencies have been directed by an executive order, Implementing The President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative, to “undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.” Most recently, on March 27, the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to reorganize and conduct an RIF to reduce staff by 10,000, including 1,200 staff at the National Institutes of Health.