The Hechinger Report – Decades of carefully built infrastructure aimed at improving and tracking how American children learn vanished in an ideological attack. “Inauguration Day was a time of hope for the MAGA faithful who watched President Donald Trump take his second oath of office in the Capitol rotunda. But less than a mile away, at the Department of Education, fear and uncertainty reigned. Researchers, contractors and federal staff — the corner of the Education Department that I cover — braced for potentially devastating upheaval. Would the department itself be eliminated, as Trump had promised during the campaign? Would congressionally mandated research and statistical programs move to other agencies? And, if so, which ones? Amid the unease, a small but determined force was already at work. The consequences would be profound. As many as 16 members from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team embedded within the agency in early February, according to news reports. These Young Turks reviewed contracts, identified vulnerabilities and quietly plotted what some would later call a blitzkrieg against federal research. As one senior researcher told me, decades of painstaking work vanished overnight in an attack by an inexperienced and ideologically driven staff intent on dismantling the bureaucracy without understanding its purpose…”