Elon Musk’s cost-cutting effort announced a variety of cuts at the Education Department totaling over $900 million, apparently aimed at hobbling the department’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences.
The team Mr. Musk has assembled, which has operated in relative secrecy in shuttering other agencies such as U.S.A.I.D. and slashing government programs, said on Monday that the Education Department had “terminated” 89 contracts, as well as 29 grants associated with diversity and equity training.
Most, if not all, of the contract cuts hit the Institute of Education Sciences’s portfolio, including Education Innovation and Research grants and review projects associated with the What Works Clearinghouse, which produces and curates research on best practices in education, according to three people familiar with the department’s contracting. The people requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts.
Less than two weeks after the release of new federal testing data showing reading achievement at historic lows, the cuts were likely to hit research intended to answer questions about some of the biggest problems in American education since the Covid-19 pandemic, such as absenteeism and student behavioral challenges.
A spokesman for the Education Department did not elaborate on the programs or grants it gave the order to suspend, referring reporters to a social media post from the account associated with Mr. Musk’s efforts.
But the move created immediate alarm among researchers and lawmakers, who see the information assembled by the department as an invaluable resource for educators working to improve teaching methods.
Cuts to the agency’s research grants are especially notable given that the federal government has taken a leadership role in collecting data on education — and highlighting best practices — since the 1860s, said Chester E. Finn Jr., who served under President Ronald Reagan as the Education Department’s assistant secretary for research and improvement.
Dr. Finn compared education research to medical research, pointing out that there is no equivalent to the role pharmaceutical companies play as a private sector funding source.
Education research, he said, “is arguably the oldest and most central function of the federal government in education.”
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, denounced the cuts.
“An unelected billionaire is now bulldozing the research arm of the Department of Education — taking a wrecking ball to high-quality research and basic data we need to improve our public schools,” Ms. Murray said in a statement on Monday. “Cutting off these investments after the contract has already been inked is the definition of wasteful.”
Separately on Tuesday, a Federal District Court judge in Washington gave the government more time to respond to a legal challenge that had sought to restrict members of Mr. Musk’s team from gaining access to sensitive data housed at the department.
The lawsuit, brought by two legal groups representing the University of California Student Association, sought to keep Mr. Musk’s associates from combing through the Education Department’s data because of privacy concerns related to the personal identifying information that students routinely disclose when applying for federal aid.
In the hearing on Tuesday, Judge Randolph D. Moss expressed some doubt about whether lawyers representing the students could show that Mr. Musk’s team had harmed students by improperly gaining access to their data because it was unclear whether anyone on Mr. Musk’s team was operating as an employee of the department.
“Here you’re dealing with people who, at least apparently, in some form or another, are government employees, although I don’t really know that, and I don’t have an administrative record,” Judge Moss said.
Mr. Musk’s team, part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has been operating in the Education Department for more than a week. Team members were added to the agency’s staff directory and have been working from the top floor of its main building in Washington.
President Trump’s appointees have told staff members at the Education Department that Mr. Musk’s team will scrutinize the agency’s budget and operations. They warned various offices in the Education Department to expect some upheaval in connection to the review, according to recordings obtained by The New York Times.
A lawyer for the Justice Department said on Tuesday that the team litigating the matter had not been briefed on whether members of Mr. Musk’s team had “actual access” to sensitive student information, such as tax return information, Social Security numbers or income data.
“What are they doing in that system? Why would they need to be in that system?” Judge Moss said. “There’s not a lot of clarity about what the DOGE employees are doing.”
