In a year marked by sweeping changes and legal battles, the Trump administration’s approach to education has left an indelible mark on the nation’s schools and research community. On August 21, 2025, two major developments made headlines: the administration’s effort to cancel the largest reading experiment ever funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm, and the rollout of new guidance aimed at expanding school choice options for families across the country. Both underscore a broader vision—one that seeks to shift control away from federal agencies and toward states, local districts, and parents.
Months before the scheduled completion of a $41 million, 6.5-year-long study on reading interventions, researchers at Boston University received shocking news: the Trump administration was pulling the plug. According to reporting by APM Reports, the study—funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the Department of Education’s research arm—had already spent 93% of its budget and gathered three years of data from over 100 elementary schools in seven states. The cancellation left educators and researchers reeling. Carol Dissen, a teacher trainer on the BU team, recalled, “We worked hard for three years to show that it works and that you can make a change for those students. And to hear that the data wasn’t going to be analyzed and shared, it’s devastating—absolutely devastating.”
The experiment was designed to test an early warning system for reading difficulties, formally known as a multi-tiered system of support. This system identifies struggling readers early and provides increasingly intensive interventions—much like a doctor escalates treatments for a persistent illness. The approach was recommended by a 2015 federal law, but, as Boston University’s Nancy Nelson explained, “few implemented it well” before this study. The randomized trial began in 2018, persisted through pandemic disruptions, and was intended to answer whether the system’s benefits justified the significant effort required from teachers and schools.
The sudden termination of the study was not an isolated event. The Department of Government Efficiency, under the Trump administration, terminated about 106 education-related contracts totaling $820 million. These abrupt cancellations disrupted large-scale experiments, cut students off from services, and left researchers in limbo. Layoffs shrank the IES to a tenth of its former size by August 2025, further hampering its ability to conduct and disseminate research. Tabbye Chavous, executive director of the American Educational Research Association, noted that while a lawsuit forced the administration to reinstate the reading study, “most of the institute’s research and data functions have not been restarted, in spite of Congressional mandates.”
Legal action proved pivotal. After two research associations sued, the Trump administration agreed in June 2025 to reinstate the contract for the early warning system study. Still, out of more than 100 canceled contracts, only 12 had been revived as of June, according to court filings and federal spending data. The administration argued that reinstating the reading study fulfilled its duty to evaluate how effectively students with disabilities are taught, but refused to revive other major special education studies—including a 14-year longitudinal project and a $45 million postsecondary experiment.
For educators like Annette Sisler, an elementary school principal in Junction City, Oregon, the research had tangible benefits. Her school adopted one of the study’s models, Enhanced Core Reading Instruction, and saw the proportion of second graders struggling with reading fluency drop from 43% in fall 2024 to just 8% by spring 2025. But the uncertainty surrounding federal research has made school districts wary of participating in future studies. Nelson reflected, “In the absence of those data, they’re doing it a little bit more blindly.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration was pushing forward with its agenda to expand school choice and return educational authority to the states. On the same day the reading experiment’s fate was reported, the U.S. Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague Letter to State and Local Education Agencies.” The letter provided guidance on how to better serve private school students eligible for federally funded academic support under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The guidance explained how Title I-A funds, traditionally reserved for public schools, could be used to provide services like one-on-one tutoring, summer school, or counseling to eligible private school students—emphasizing that private school families are federal taxpayers and deserve similar support.
“It has been a banner year for school choice—from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill federal school choice tax credit to the Department’s guidance to states on how to expand choice under existing law, the Trump Administration is using all available tools to expand school options for students and parents,” Department of Education deputy press secretary Ellen Keast told Fox News Digital. Hayley Sanon, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, echoed this commitment: “Federal taxpayer dollars should support the best education outcomes for students regardless of where they attend school.”
Thursday’s letter was the fourth piece of guidance the Department of Education issued in 2025 to expand education choice under ESEA. Earlier in the year, the department encouraged states to use federal Title I funds for direct student services, such as advanced coursework, tutoring, and dual enrollment, giving parents more say in their children’s education. In May, another letter urged states to strengthen how they identify and respond to unsafe schools, highlighting the need for stronger definitions, better data collection, and expanded school choice options—including transfers and charter schools. And in June, guidance was issued to support improvement plans for low-performing schools, again emphasizing parent-selected options and flexibility.
These efforts are part of a broader push by President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the federal Department of Education and return powers to the states. The Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing McMahon to fire hundreds of employees accelerated this plan. Trump celebrated the ruling, declaring, “The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE.”
Yet, the administration’s actions have not been without controversy. While some hail the expansion of school choice and the return of control to states and parents, others worry about the loss of federal oversight and the impact on vulnerable students. The cancellation of research contracts has sown mistrust among educators and made school districts hesitant to participate in future federally funded studies. As Nelson observed, the disruption “was a major, terrible example of how to completely disrupt those relationships.”
Russ Whitehurst, the founding director of the IES under President George W. Bush, summed up the stakes: “It’s a critical activity, finding out what works for whom under what circumstances. You can’t do it if you don’t have offices that are equipped to collect and disseminate the information.”
The Trump administration’s education agenda—marked by its push for school choice, dramatic cuts to research, and efforts to dismantle the Department of Education—has set the stage for a new era in American schooling. Whether this approach will yield lasting improvements or further fragment the nation’s education system remains to be seen, but the ripple effects of 2025 will be felt for years to come.
