The former leader of the National Center for Education Statistics, Peggy Carr, warned Monday that the nonpartisan education statistics agency cannot fulfill its statutory responsibilities in the state that it is in, speaking out publicly for the first time since the Trump administration suddenly fired her in February.
"It is impossible for three, five, or even a dozen people to fulfill the statutory responsibilities of NCES or to fully inform policymakers, educators, and the American public of the condition of education," Carr said in a July 14 statement. "What has occurred is a quiet, devastating shutdown and decimation of a critical national institution." Carr's intention to issue a statement on the situation was first reported earlier Monday by The Hechinger Report.
States and districts will lose their ability to compare education data as a result of the administration's decimation of NCES, she said. With the lack of data, the nation will also be unable to measure whether education policy changes are effective.
Carr spent over two decades as associate commissioner for assessment for NCES prior to her appointment in 2021 by President Joe Biden to a six-year term as commissioner.
During her years at NCES, she oversaw the expansion and innovation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation's Report Card. NCES is also responsible for other notable education assessment and data collections, such as the Program for International Student Assessment and the congressionally mandated Condition of Education Report.
The agency for the first time missed its June 1 deadline to deliver the Condition of Education report following March layoffs that left it with only a handful of staffers. Under the Trump administration's efforts to downsize the government, the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets NAEP policy, had earlier cut back NAEP for some subjects and grades, citing "the imperative for cost efficiencies.”
The U.S. Department of Education, which fired NCES employees as part of a larger-scale upheaval that reduced the agency to only half of its former workforce, has repeatedly said the moves will not impact its statutory responsibilities, many of which are carried out through contracts.
However, in her Monday statement, Carr warned that those who oversaw those contracts — most of which she said are now canceled — and ensured the quality of their end results are gone, echoing previous warnings from other former NCES employees.
"Without expert oversight, unintentional errors and omissions will emerge — compromising public trust," said Carr.
The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
Last week, the department appointed Matthew Soldner, one of the few experts left at NCES, as the acting commissioner of NCES. Soldner served as acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences, which houses NCES, since April 2024.
The agency, in a July 7 announcement, said Soldner and the remaining staff will "ensure all NCES reports and products are usable and relevant to researchers, educators, education leaders, and other stakeholders" and oversee the administration of NAEP, which will continue in reduced capacity, next year.
Soldner said in the statement that he plans on "recommitting NCES to providing objective, neutral, and non-ideological information and statistics as we work toward a modernized and reimagined IES.”
