As President-elect Trump and his team prepare for the first 100 days of office, they are setting their policy agenda and striving to make good on their campaign promises. In education, that will include decreasing the federal role (if not eliminating the U.S. Department of Education altogether), expanding school choice, and rolling back the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel student debt. With a Republican Congress on the horizon and a Secretary of Education pick poised for easy confirmation, the Trump administration stands a good chance of advancing this agenda.
I’d like to offer one more priority for the Trump team’s consideration – one that you didn’t hear on the campaign trail but could make President-elect Trump’s more noble aspirations possible: an investment in education R&D. By prioritizing high-quality research and development, the Trump administration can make the U.S. more globally competitive, empower state and local education leaders, and increase the ROI of education spending.
First, “education R&D” is a broad term, so I think it’s worth explaining. I think of R&D as the process of studying existing interventions and new innovations to improve or create products or practices. In education, R&D focuses on what works in teaching and learning, and explores nuances like what works, for whom, and in which conditions.
So why should R&D investments be on Trump’s education agenda? Especially when the President-elect has called for the Education Department to be shuttered and a Republican Congress is likely to cut discretionary spending? I’ll give you three reasons.
Federal investments in education R&D:
Strengthen the U.S.’s ability to out-compete China and other rising nations. Investing in education R&D isn’t just about improving schools; it’s about safeguarding America’s future. Earlier this year, I collaborated with the Aspen Strategy Group to make the case that when K-12 students aren’t prepared for the jobs of the future, the U.S. loses its innovation edge and puts its national security at risk. American students are starting to lag in STEM subjects. The most recent NAEP results reveal declining math scores, with 9-year-olds down 7 points from 2020 to 2022 and 13-year-olds down 9 points from 2020 to 2023. In the 2022 PISA, which compares 15-year-old students globally, U.S. students were bested in science by their peers in nine countries, including Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong (China didn’t participate but came first in science on its most recent PISA).
Over the next decade, the tech workforce will grow twice as fast as the overall U.S. workforce, so American students need to be prepared to fill these roles. Yet, based on current degree completion rates, the Semiconductor Industry Association projects that 58 percent of new semiconductor jobs are at risk of going unfilled. Additionally, 2.1 million manufacturing jobs are projected to go unfilled by 2030.
Researching and developing new approaches to boosting student achievement will open doors to high-tech STEM careers and help the U.S. retain its status as a leader in innovation and a global superpower.
Give state and local education leaders the information they need to make evidence-based decisions on behalf of their communities. Teachers, families, and educators are most familiar with the challenges their students face when learning, but they often lack the time and resources to find or develop evidence-based solutions. Education R&D can identify systemic problems and share strategies to overcome them, giving local leaders the data and evidence they need to determine which solutions would work best for their students.
A prime example of this is the “Mississippi Miracle,” which really wasn’t a “miracle” when you consider the investments and strong leadership behind it. As the superintendent of the Mississippi Department of Education, Dr. Carey Wright used federally-funded research on the science of reading to convince the state legislature to put nearly $10 million into an evidence-based approach to teaching literacy at the K-3 levels. The new approach worked. Mississippi made the greatest strides in literacy of all states in 2019. After eight years of implementation, Mississippi fourth-graders moved up 28 places in NAEP rankings to become 21st in the nation.
The federal government didn’t tell Dr. Wright to implement the science of reading in Mississippi. It enabled the research that led her to choose to implement the science of reading – and it made a big difference for students across the state.
Promote fiscal accountability and government efficiency. R&D is not just about coming up with new ideas and approaches; it’s also about evaluating existing interventions to see if they work, for whom they work, and under which conditions. In education, R&D informs which tools and approaches get scaled up to impact more classrooms, and which need to be reworked or discontinued. Taxpayers deserve to know if the programs and tools being used in their school district are actually paying dividends and improving student outcomes. Education R&D makes that possible.
The Alliance for Learning Innovation, the coalition I lead, has been sharing stories of high-ROI investments in an effort to increase transparency around federal spending and shine a spotlight on the investments that are paying off for kids.
With all this talk of a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” wouldn’t it make sense to promote the efficient deployment of education dollars?
If the Trump administration wants to strengthen national security, promote local control, and increase government efficiency, it should make room on its policy agenda for education R&D.
This post first appeared in Flypaper.