Unexpected Dismissal
Peggy Carr's Unexpected Departure from NCES
Peggy Carr, the first Black woman to serve as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), was abruptly placed on administrative leave by the Trump administration in early 2025. This move came after more than 35 years with the Education Department, including her role as Commissioner of NCES.
The reasons for Carr's dismissal remain unclear, with no detailed public information provided in the available sources. However, this event occurred within a broader pattern during that period, where political pressure and administrative actions affected leadership at federal statistical agencies.
During Carr's tenure as Commissioner, NCES faced several challenges. One of the most significant was the termination of the PISA contract, which led to chaos over the next two weeks. DOGE provided guidelines for justifying the reinstatement of contracts it had just killed, while Carr's team worked tirelessly to save the data.
NCES is the federal government's third-largest statistical agency after the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Established in 1867, NCES was created in the aftermath of the Civil War as part of an effort to help the South recover during Reconstruction.
Carr's departure came just as schools were administering an important international test - the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The Education Department disclosed in a June legal brief that it is restarting PISA, but it's unclear if they will do the national report.
The immediate problem is that there aren't enough personnel to do the work that Congress mandates. NCES has missed an annual deadline for delivering a statistical report to Congress and failed to release the 2024 NAEP science test scores in June because there was no commissioner to sign off on them.
Carr's priority was to save NAEP, as DOGE was demanding aggressive cuts. DOGE had been demanding 50% cuts to NAEP's $185 million budget, according to several former Education Department employees. Carr could not see a way to cut that deep, as the whole point of the exam is to track student achievement over time, and if too many corners were cut, it could "break the trend," making it impossible to compare the next test results in 2026 with historical scores.
Carr was particularly worried about preserving the interagency agreement with the Census Bureau, which was needed to calculate federal Title I allocations to high-poverty schools. Despite these challenges, Carr helped build the National Assessment of Educational Progress into the influential Nation's Report Card.
Another widely used data collection, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS-K 2024), which tracks a cohort of students from kindergarten through elementary school, had to be given up during Carr's tenure.
Carr's term as commissioner was supposed to extend through 2027, but she was dismissed before that. Despite her departure, Carr plans to stay involved in education statistics - but from the outside. She's been talking with states and school districts about calculating where they rank on an international yardstick.
In May, 50 of Carr's former team gathered at a church in Virginia to commiserate. A senior statistician gave Carr a homespun plaque of glued blue buttons spelling the letters NAEP with a shiny gold star above it. It was a fitting gift, as NAEP is regarded as the best designed test in the country, the gold standard. Carr built that reputation, and now it has gone home with her.
- The sudden administrative leave of Peggy Carr, a notable figure in education statistics, has raised concerns about the impact of political pressure and leadership changes on the quality of education data.
- Financeminister DOGE's demand for aggressive cuts to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) budget has added to the tension in the business sector, with career professionals in education and political circles voicing alarm over the potential for reduced educational innovation.
- As some federal statistical agencies face leadership inequality, the general news highlights the importance of committing resources to education and maintaining interagency agreements as a means to ensure the fair distribution of funding for schools via programs like Title I.
- In the post-administration era, it remains uncertain how the Education Department will navigate the complexities of reinstating programs such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS-K 2024), while addressing the need for solid education data necessary for career advancement and informed policy decisions in politics.
