For more than 50 years, the Department of Education has revealed a number of realities about how students are treated in every public school in America: which children are being bullied, which children are being harassed, and which students are allowed to access the Internet, among other things. The agency’s civil rights data collection aims
For more than 50 years, the Department of Education has revealed a number of realities about how students are treated in every public school in America: which children are being bullied, which children are being harassed, and which students are allowed to access the Internet, among other things. The agency’s civil rights data collection aims to do just that: help hold schools accountable.
The most recent information, compiled for the 2023-24 school year, was supposed to be released last December, according to the Department of Education’s own deadline.
But it has not been like that.
The agency has not responded to multiple requests from NPR asking what is behind the delay.
Federal bureaucracy may be slow and delays are not always a concern, but advocates are nervous amid the Trump administration’s recent plans to move the Office of Civil Rights, which houses the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) team, from the Department of Education to the Department of Justice.
That planned transfer follows months of federal action that upends the way students’ civil rights have been protected in the past: The Trump administration has cracked down on initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion, for example, and prioritized investigations into schools that allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
“This administration has repeatedly applied civil rights laws in ways that ignore or dismiss the very real inequalities that persist in our education system,” says Denise Forte, president and CEO of EdTrust, a think tank focused on addressing educational inequality. The delay in releasing the CRDC data, he says, “raises serious concerns, particularly as this administration seeks to minimize the impacts of racism and economic inequality on public education.”
A former Department of Education employee who worked at the CRDC tells NPR that the equipment is still intact. However, its future is unclear: although the Trump administration has announced Although the Office of Civil Rights is moving to the Justice Department, the process could take months, as could other plans to outsource parts of the Education Department’s work. The former employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions, said part of the delay may have to do with the 2025 government shutdown that affected Department of Education operations for more than six weeks, including work at the CRDC.
The department has also been reducing its operations since the Trump administration took office, cutting about half of its staff last year.
Lindsay Kubatzky, director of policy and advocacy at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, agrees with Forte’s assessment that a delay in this data may have to do with the Trump administration’s destruction of systems that have historically helped hold schools accountable for protecting students’ civil rights. “Unfortunately, this administration has proposed many policies that would make less transparent how students with disabilities in particular are served in public schools,” he says.
For example, Kubatzky points out how the Trump administration has proposed eliminating the requirement for states to track which students are being identified with disabilities based on their race and ethnicity. Historically, black and brown students are more often misidentified as needing special education than their peers.
While that disability data is not directly related to the CRDC, Kubatzky says it is an example of how the administration is working to undo federal civil rights accountability tools. The CRDC, he says, also plays a key role in helping advocates show where “schools are not serving students and also gives us leverage to push for policies that are more inclusive and less negative toward students.”
For example, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and US Representative Joaquín Castro of Texas used CRDC data results to craft a bill that proposed expanding access to Advanced Placement courses for underrepresented students, including minority and disabled students, who, according to the data, had unequal access to these classes. A spokesman for Booker’s team said the bill would be reintroduced in the coming days.
One of the questions the delayed data set needed to answer is which students have access to the internet as AI plays a larger role in education, according to the former CRDC staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Are our schools prepared to usher in this wave of AI? Will all students have equal access to devices and Internet capabilities?” said the person. “How do we know if the CRDC doesn’t come out?”
The former staff member described the CRDC team as a deeply committed group of people focused on ensuring “access and opportunity” for the country’s most marginalized students. “We can’t make the right decisions for students if we don’t know their current realities.”
Edited by: Nirvi Shah
Design and visual development by: L.A. Johnson
{For more tech updates, stay tuned to our blog.|Keep following us for the latest insights.|Check back often for more exciting news!}
