Participants say cuts to federal education research threaten districts' ability to scale evidence-based practices

Unidentified Speaker 2 said cuts to federal research funding have "taken our research agenda and had stopped it," and warned that the cancellation and delay of grants to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is limiting schools' ability to track students and identify which interventions work for whom.

Unidentified Speaker 1, who initiated the discussion, said curriculum decisions are handled by states and local school boards but added that "one place where the federal government really does make a difference is IES and that research to support the best practices." Speaker 1 asked for comment on how cuts to IES affect local-level decisions.

Speaker 2 framed the federal research role as nonpartisan and described concrete impacts: with IES grants delayed or canceled, districts lose centralized research and data that help them know which programs deliver outcomes and how to scale successful interventions. "How are we tracking students? How are we knowing which interventions are working and for whom?" Speaker 2 asked, noting those functions inform decisions at the district level.

Speaker 1 emphasized the problem for state budgets, saying many in the discussion are former state legislators and that "state legislatures don't have additional resources to help fill those gaps." There were no motions or votes on the record in this transcript; the exchange recorded discussion and concern but no formal action was taken during these segments.

The discussion positioned IES-funded research as the primary federal contribution for evidence-building in K–12 practice and raised the practical problem that, absent that funding, local districts and state legislatures may lack both the data and the money to substitute for the lost federal research supports.