April 22, 2025 Story by: Publisher
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to discontinue collecting, maintaining, analyzing, and disseminating federal education data.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), argues that the Department’s actions violate its legal obligations and threaten critical research that supports equal access to education across the nation.
“The systematic collection of educational data serves the essential purpose of not only identifying educational inequality but also providing the research base for policies and practices to address this inequality and ensure that all students have access to supportive, meaningful, and effective learning environments,” Carol Lee, NAEd President said. “The NAEd is committed to ensuring that this Congressionally mandated data continues to be collected, supported, and used for these critical purposes.”
The legal action comes in response to a series of moves by the Department of Education that plaintiffs say have undermined federal research laws, including reductions in staff in key data offices, limiting public access to existing datasets, and a sweeping and sudden termination of contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
According to the complaint, these actions violate the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), which mandates that the Department maintain the IES and its research centers and ensure the availability of independent, comprehensive, and scientifically valid education data.
The lawsuit contends that the Department lacks the authority to forgo these responsibilities, which Congress has made legally binding. As a result of the data disruption, the plaintiff organizations argue, education scholars and measurement experts will be unable to research educational outcomes for Black, Native, Indigenous, and Latino students; students with disabilities; English language learners; and socioeconomically disadvantaged students—populations for whom this data is vital for promoting equality in education.
“The law requires not only data access but data quality,”Andrew Ho, President of the National Council on Measurement in Education, added. “For 88 years, our organization has upheld standards for valid measurements and the research that depends on these measurements. We do so again today.”
The plaintiffs are seeking immediate relief from the court, including an order to reinstate IES and NCES employee positions and contracts and to prevent the agency from failing to preserve educational datasets. The case highlights the ongoing national debate over the importance of federal educational data in ensuring equal access and opportunity in education.
“The U.S. Department of Education has a legal obligation to create, maintain, and distribute educational datasets. This data is both critical to compliance with ESRA and other federal law, and essential to understanding, tracking, and promoting educational opportunity for Black and other marginalized students,” Allison Scharfstein, an Education Fellow at the Legal Defense Fund said. “We are proud to represent NAEd and NCME, who are standing up not only for the integrity of education data, but for the rights of every student whose opportunity depends on it.”
Source: NAACPLDF
