WASHINGTON — Elon Musk’s cost-cutting effort announced a variety of cuts at the Education Department totaling over $900 million, apparently aimed at hobbling the department’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.
The team Musk has assembled, which has operated in relative secrecy in shuttering other agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and slashing government programs, said on social media Monday that the Education Department had “terminated” 89 contracts, as well as 29 grants associated with diversity and equity training.
Most, if not all, of the contract cuts hit the Institute of Education Sciences’ portfolio, including Education Innovation and Research grants and review projects associated with the What Works Clearinghouse, which produces and curates research on best practices in education, according to three people familiar with the department’s contracting.
Less than two weeks after the release of new federal testing data showing reading achievement at historic lows, the cuts were likely to hit research intended to answer questions about some of the biggest problems in American education since the COVID-19 pandemic, such as absenteeism and student behavioral challenges.
A spokesperson for the Education Department did not elaborate on the programs or grants it gave the order to suspend.
Appearing at a news conference alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Musk defended his team’s work as radically transparent, even as Education Department staff members and contractors frantically raced to understand the scope of the cuts.
Trump repeated his vows to scrutinize the Education Department but did not address the changes.
Dana Tofig, a spokesperson for the American Institutes for Research, an independent nonprofit that often teams up with the federal government on education data, said the group had received termination notices for several major grants.
AEM Education Services, a vendor that collects data under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for the department to analyze, also had its contract suspended, according to a department employee.
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