Witnesses warn cuts to IES, Office of Ed Tech and Safer Communities funding hamper research and school mental-health services
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Summary
Panelists told the House subcommittee that recent federal cuts — including the cancellation of roughly $1 billion in student mental health grants and reported staff reductions at the Office of Educational Technology and IES — have left districts without research support and behavioral health capacity.
Witnesses at the House subcommittee hearing raised concerns that recent federal funding and staffing decisions are undermining schools' ability to respond to student mental-health needs and to design evidence-based technology policies.
Ranking Member Bonamici told the panel that the administration had "canceled more than $1,000,000,000 in funding for student mental health services" previously provided through the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. She and witnesses said those grants supported school psychologists, counselors and suicide-prevention resources and had been used by districts to fund staff and services for thousands of students.
Cheryl Holcomb McCoy, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said the Department of Education's research and technical-assistance capacity has been reduced. "The department recently, reportedly dismissed all of the employees in the Office of Education Technology," she said, and she urged reinvestment in both the Office of Educational Technology (OET) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to support longitudinal research on screen time and to produce guidance for states and districts.
Holcomb McCoy and other witnesses said IES funded rigorous, multi-district research including randomized trials and long-term studies that informed practice. "The research that comes out of IES was so important to the work of educators because it informed... rigorous evaluation of the policies and the practices," she told the committee, and said canceled IES grants have stopped ongoing investigations into promising interventions.
Members from both parties said districts rely on federal research and grant programs to develop effective approaches. Panelists argued that without reinstated funding and staff, small and rural districts in particular lack the resources to design tailored, evidence-based rules or to hire needed mental-health staff. Representative Bonamici and others urged restoring school-based mental-health grants and research funding to allow districts to adopt policies grounded in data rather than trial-and-error.
No formal federal action was taken by the subcommittee at the hearing; members used the hearing record to probe effects of federal decisions and to solicit witnesses' recommendations on research priorities and grant programs.