KVIG Informative

The Trump administration cut the team that measures American student achievement, then canceled a dozen national assessments. The scores that remain show reading, math, and science falling for the third consecutive time. The tests that would have told us more are gone.

In 2025, the Trump administration laid off more than half the workers at the Institute of Education Sciences — the arm of the U.S. Department of Education charged with measuring student achievement and overseeing the data that comes from the tests students take nationwide. Shortly after those cuts, the department canceled approximately a dozen national and state assessments of student progress through 2032. About half of the canceled tests were planned for 12th graders.

What the remaining data shows is not encouraging. The National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the Nation’s Report Card and mandated by Congress — released results in 2025 showing eighth-graders’ science scores had fallen four points since 2019. Twelfth-graders’ math and reading scores each fell three points over the same period. Reading scores among fourth and eighth graders fell for the third consecutive assessment cycle. The NCES commissioner called the results sobering.

What Was Canceled and Why It Matters

The National Assessment Governing Board eliminated assessments in fourth-grade science, 12th-grade U.S. history, and writing assessments across fourth, eighth, and 12th grades — tests scheduled to be administered over the next seven years. These were not redundant tests. They measured specific subjects and age groups that the remaining NAEP assessments do not cover. Their cancellation means there will be no national baseline data on whether American students can write, understand history, or apply scientific reasoning at the grade levels when those skills are most critical to develop.

The administration also slashed billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, canceling more than 400 STEM research grants. An analysis by ProPublica found that many of the canceled grants had nothing to do with the DEI themes cited as justification. A grant studying biodiversity of plants was flagged apparently because it included the word diversity. A grant training teachers to help students research urban heat islands in their communities was canceled in April 2025.

The Chronic Absenteeism Crisis Nobody Is Talking About

Separate from the federal data collapse, RAND Corporation research from the 2024-25 school year found that 30 percent or more of students in urban school districts missed 10 percent or more of school days — the threshold for chronic absenteeism. Urban districts were five to six times more likely to have these levels of absenteeism than rural and suburban districts. The finding means that in cities like Las Vegas, roughly one in three students is missing so much school that academic recovery becomes statistically unlikely without direct intervention.

The same RAND research found that about half of middle and high school students reported losing interest during math lessons about half the time or more. Students most likely to disengage said they wanted fewer online activities and more real-world applications. Teachers reported feeling unprepared to teach the growing share of students who are English language learners — now approximately 10 percent of all public school students nationally, and higher in states like Nevada.

The Data We No Longer Have

The practical consequence of eliminating the IES workforce and canceling assessments is that the United States is now in the process of making itself blind to what is happening to its children educationally. The scores that exist show a system in decline across reading, math, and science. The tools that would have told us whether that decline is accelerating, stabilizing, or affecting some students more than others — those tools are being dismantled at the same time the scores are falling.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, described 2025 in higher education as defined by chaos and fear. Institutions not yet singled out for cuts fear they will be next. Doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences at schools including Brown University were canceled for the 2026-27 academic year as a direct result of funding cuts.

NAEP tests were first administered in 1969. For more than 50 years they provided a consistent, nonpartisan baseline for understanding what American students know and can do. That baseline is now being eroded by the same administration overseeing the schools the tests are supposed to measure. The scores are falling. The measuring instruments are being taken away. And the people who would have reported what comes next no longer have jobs.