Today, Laidlaw runs , which reaches over 60,000 students a day across 48 states with research-based curricula built around the original paper game concept. His is just one of dozens of education technology breakthroughs highlighted in “,” our analysis for The Study Group of the impact of the Small Business Innovation Research program, run by the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Between 2012 and 2022, this quiet innovation engine invested approximately $92 million in education research and development, seeding innovations from AI-driven literacy tools to teletherapy platforms that help rural schools access speech and occupational therapy.

The returns are staggering. Products developed through this funding have reached more than 130 million students and educators nationwide — at a cost to taxpayers of roughly 70 cents per user. Each federal dollar invested generated nearly $9 in sales, investments or acquisitions. 

But today, seed money that helps address real student needs is at risk. Layoffs and funding cuts at the department have frozen innovation grants. One startup had to let go of most of its team, stalling a promising project overnight. Another was forced to put off recruiting new team members, the type of holdup that can upend a young venture. When Fiscal Year 2025 awards were pushed back by months, delaying contracts, one company founder missed a planned school-year pilot window entirely — a costly setback in a fast-moving market.

This federal turbulence does real harm to these small businesses and to the students they are trying to help. That’s unfortunate, because public seed funding helps education innovation to grow more accessible and rooted in real learner needs. And at a time of rapid advancement in artificial intelligence, it is crucial that innovations reach all students and meet varied needs.

In fact, while roughly 90% of startups fail, many SBIR-backed education ventures succeed where others fall short. A primary reason is that they often originate with teachers and academic researchers who deeply understand schools’ toughest challenges. An educator notices students struggling with fractions; a practitioner sees rural students who can’t access speech therapy; a researcher wonders if AI could help English learners master science vocabulary. The Small Business Innovation Research program supports early-stage innovations the private sector initially hesitates to fund.

For example, federal seed funds supported development and evaluation of an early version of , a teletherapy platform that addresses critical shortages of special education specialists. Presence now facilitates millions of virtual speech and occupational therapy sessions, as well as mental health counseling. The startup attracted over $70 million in investments, underscoring how strategic public funding can catalyze transformative private-sector growth.

Another example: Learning Ovations’ literacy platform , an evidence-based early reading rapid assessment to inform instruction. A2i, developed over a decade of federally funded research, uses algorithms to tailor lessons to individual student needs. With SBIR backing, the evidence-based platform expanded rapidly, and it was so compelling that publishing giant Scholastic acquired A2i to grow nationally. Today, thousands of classrooms use this technology to boost early literacy.

Beyond individual successes, SBIR has created an ecosystem of innovation with numerous spillover effects. Companies report spinoffs, entirely new product lines and deeper partnerships with schools and researchers. For many, the seed money didn’t just launch products — it fostered their entire business.

Programs like this aren’t charity, they’re smart economics. They demonstrate how public dollars can be used effectively: not as ongoing subsidies, but as smart, initial investments that private markets scale and sustain. This approach is a blueprint for future investment in critical areas, such as using AI to personalize learning, prepare students for careers and equip educators with the tools they need to be effective.

As a former SBIR program manager and longtime educator and now applied researcher, we’ve witnessed firsthand what targeted, strategic public investments can achieve. Early-stage ideas by classroom teachers and scientific researchers can, with the right nurturing, transform education for millions. Small, well-placed bets can create powerful solutions, like games that engage students in algebra; data dashboards that provide real-time insights into whether students are succeeding or struggling, and why; and assistive technologies that accommodate the needs of individual learners, including those with disabilities.

In an era marked by skepticism toward government spending, the SBIR program stands out as a model worth celebrating. It empowers innovative small businesses to harness education’s transformative potential.

As the nation debates how to spend limited education budgets, it’s crucial to consider that if 70 cents per student can deliver these breakthroughs, the possibilities are limitless. The nation’s students and educators deserve no less.

This system must be rebuilt, and it must be done thoughtfully, with student success as the guiding goal.

Data are among the most important tools available for understanding what’s working and what isn’t in education. For higher education especially, data are critical for identifying problems, spotlighting solutions and distinguishing colleges and universities that deliver strong student outcomes from those in need of improvement. IES has long provided trusted, rigorous data that inform decisionmaking and drive policy change. But the agency and the insights it supports are now in jeopardy.

The administration’s cuts have real consequences for students, families, states, policymakersand the country.

Every year, over 1 million peopleuse tools powered by federal data to make decisions about college and about higher education policy. The , for example, helps prospective applicants compare schools by cost, student loan debt, graduation rates and post-graduation earnings. However, colleges have reported system outages when trying to upload information to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which the scorecard relies upon. In addition, staffers responsible for verifying, approving and publishing the data have been terminated — along with 90% of all IES personnel. Equally troubling, the Department of Education canceled the contract that provided training to the professionals who report data to the system, risking the quality and integrity of the information. 

In February, IES did away with other vital data collections, including the and its longitudinal follow-up study about the outcomes of first-time college students, the . These data sources are essential to answering basic questions like: Who enrolls in college? Who transfers? Who completes their degree? How do students pay for college? How do graduates fare in the workforce? While the contract for the 2024 postsecondary student aid data collection was reinstated June 30, questions remain about the scope of that study and its future, as well its related longitudinal studies. These concerns are especially pertinent as IES remains severely understaffed and the Trump administration has proposed a 67% budget cut for fiscal year 2026.

IES’ outlook remains wholly unclear. The administration has not outlined a plan, nor has it sought any public input to determine its future. Some officials have advocated scattering the Education Department’s responsibilities across other agencies, but they have not explained how they would preserve researcher access and data quality under such a fragmented system. This creates uncertainty for students, families, state officials and researchers — and threatens to destroy a system that took decades to build, undermining the future of evidence-based policymaking.

A newly department senior adviser, Dr. Amber Northern, is reportedly focusing on IES reform. But without swift and transparent action, the damage risks becoming permanent. The nation doesn’t need a patchwork fix. It needs a clear, thoughtful and ambitious plan to rebuild its education data infrastructure. That starts with a few key principles: 

First, protect the principles that made IES so crucial in the first place: statistical rigor, public transparency, data security, privacy protections, data accessibility and responsiveness to stakeholder input. 

Second, recognize that no state or private entity can replace what the federal government is uniquely equipped to do: mandate consistent reporting across colleges, access administrative data across agencies and ensure national comparability.

Third, recognize that federal data are a public good, and that changes to them should be informed by stakeholders — states, colleges, education researchers, policy analysts, policymakers and, of course, students and families. Any reform must be conceived with their needs in mind.

Fourth, think bigger. Set an ambitious vision for the depth, breadth and scope of education data and research that the nation truly needs.

America’s future relies on the strength of its education system — and education decisions made by students, families, educators, states and policymakers ought to be informed by the best available data and research. If students are to succeed, the nation must commit to providing and learning from the data. As the Education Department and Congress consider their next steps, they face a pivotal choice: continue to erode critical data systems, replace what existed before or seize the moment to design something stronger — a system worthy of the students it’s meant to serve.

In 2018, the Trump administration reorganizing the department out of existence. That effort failed, showing that even under a Republican administration, dissolving the Department of Education is difficult. But it’s not impossible.

A reform-minded, results-oriented executive could begin by rerouting many of the department’s functions to other agencies rather than abolishing it wholesale. I use years of personal experience in the Department of Education, leading both the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and its parent Institute of Education Sciences (IES), to show how a conservative president could achieve some first steps — and why they’re needed.  

First, and most urgently, the department must answer for its recent FAFSA debacle, which has affected millions of students and their families. The Government Accountability Office has painstakingly documented the myriad failures in how the department managed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid process this year. In testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, GAO official Melissa Emry-Arras no fewer than 40 technical problems with the FAFSA form at launch alone. These errors led to significant in the number of students — especially low-income ones — who applied for federal aid, reducing college enrollment across the country and eroding social mobility for struggling families. 

With its FAFSA failure, the department has proven it cannot effectively administer student aid programs. Its extensive student loan portfolio must be moved to the Treasury Department — and this should happen regardless of the Education Department’s eventual fate. At $1.7 trillion, the federal student aid program roughly equals a bank the size of Wells Fargo or Citibank, the third- and fourth-largest in the nation. Wells Fargo has over 226,000 to manage its portfolio, while the department has fewer than 4,400 spread across all its functions and fewer than 1,500 in the Office of Federal Student Aid. Managing the equivalent of a large bank clearly lies outside the capacity and skill set of the Education Department.  

Though not as urgent as shifting $1.7 trillion to Treasury — a Cabinet agency that deals with money — the research and evaluation activities of IES should be moved to the National Science Foundation. In bills like the CHIPS and Science Act, Congress has repeatedly closer cooperation between the foundation and the Department of Education, especially IES. 

There are several benefits to bringing IES under the foundation’s roof. IES would bring much-needed evaluation experience to NSF, ensuring taxpayer funds are spent on programs that work. Such assessments are at the core of IES’s mission, while the foundation’s education unit has not done much to study the effect of its investments on student outcomes.

Additionally, both agencies have launched in the past few years, mostly focused on a key emerging issue: how artificial intelligence can improve learning. Education research has benefited from the expertise of the foundation’s larger, more intellectually diverse sets of researchers. These include engineers, data scientists and other experts who can improve education but do not usually consider it as a research domain or IES as a potential source of support.

Having researchers work together in a unified organization would lead to closer collaboration and generate more creative innovations with greater positive impact. Moving IES into NSF would also allow the of a unit like DARPA, but for education research and development. This would lead to programs that embody the rapid turnaround and transformative vision essential to the future of education R&D.

A DARPA for education could support new partnerships with states, school districts, researchers and ed tech companies. It would certainly enable better research using AI, machine learning and cutting-edge data science methods. Already, there is considerable support for this type of program (see the , for example).

Moving IES to NSF would also give Congress the opportunity to evaluate other parts of IES’s portfolio, such as the , which have been on the chopping block repeatedly but persist at close to $60 million per year. There is far too much overlap between these and the Department of Education’s . Right now, by statute, there must be at least one comprehensive center for each of the lab program’s 10 regions across the United States. Not only do these programs overlap geographically, but it’s unclear how their missions differ. According to their , the labs, “have collaborated with school districts, state departments of education and other education stakeholders to help generate and apply evidence, with the goal of improving learner outcomes.” How does this differ from the mission of the centers, which themselves as providing “capacity-building services to state educational agencies (SEAs), regional educational agencies (REAs), local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools that improve educational outcomes”?

The labs and the centers appear to be much the same program, just duplicated, thanks to bureaucratic bloat and turf wars. Knowing who does what is challenging even for experts at navigating bureaucracy, let alone for educators or policymakers seeking advice. Either the comprehensive center program should be merged with the regional labs, or both should be terminated.

If they survive, moving them to NSF would allow closer coordination with the , a program that promotes regional partnerships among the private sector, academia and nonprofits in critical technology fields. Strong, effective education systems must be central to that effort — and combining the foundation’s regional innovative strategy with regional education efforts would help by creating a pipeline for STEM students into local high-tech industries.

Finally, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) should move to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, creating the Bureau of Labor and Education Statistics. The current bureau has a long history of managing the collection and distribution of sensitive data and is committed to the timely release of information — which puts it in stark contrast to NCES. For example, despite legal requirements and the importance of school and school district finance information, NCES is several years behind in releasing those crucial data. 

Programs that are not moved to other federal agencies or shut down altogether should be rolled into formula-driven block grants. This would enhance the role of the states, which are constitutionally charged with providing education and know better than the federal government what their students need. Devolving the department’s powers would also reduce its onerous regulatory requirements, which stifle much-needed educational innovation. 

Government agencies . They can be — and are — terminated when their opponents win elections and gain power. Closing agencies is challenging, and nothing the size of even the small Department of Education has been shuttered so far. But political will and hard work can make it so. The right administration could give the nation a more efficient, dynamic and responsive school system — all things the Department of Education has been hard-pressed to do.