Today, I submitted a written testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. Click here to download a full PDF of the testimony.
Chairman Moran, Ranking Member Van Hollen, and Members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Dan Lips. I am a senior fellow with the Foundation for American Innovation. I respectfully request that the Subcommittee support education research and development (R&D) programs within the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget. In addition, I recommend that the Subcommittee include report language aimed to increase the return on investment from federally funded education R&D activities, including: 1) publishing the outcomes of research projects, 2) establishing a national strategy for mobilizing effective research evidence for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction, and 3) creating a research evidence hub to inform parents, teachers, and other stakeholders about evidence-based best practices. Finally, the Subcommittee should direct NSF to convene a national panel on mathematics instruction, with a focus on early numeracy.
The need for evidence-based best practices in the classroom has never been greater. The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that only 39 percent of 4th-grade students scored proficient in mathematics. International test scores show that American students struggle in mathematics relative to their peers around the world.
American economic and national security requires that the nation train the next generation of students in critical and emerging technological fields. As the U.S. Intelligence Community assessed, “The next decades will see increasing global competition for the core elements of technology supremacy, such as talent, knowledge, and markets, potentially resulting in new technological leaders or hegemonies.” A recent Aspen Strategy Group report described the challenge in clear terms: “The United States faces a looming talent gap in many industries that are critical to our technological competitiveness. Without a stronger education system, capable of preparing our youth for the jobs of the future, our national security is at risk.”
For more than half a century, the United States government has been funding education R&D activities aimed at improving American students’ learning opportunities and maintaining the nation’s competitiveness in STEM and related fields. However, the American public education sector has often ignored or overlooked evidence-based best practices developed through federal education R&D.
Today, there is a new opportunity to promote the use of evidence-based best practices to ensure that children receive a high-quality education by informing growing parental demand for high-quality education options. Historic changes are underway in American education to provide students and parents with new learning opportunities, notably by expanding parental choice in education. Following Texas’s enactment of a broad education savings account program, more than 22 million students across the country have access to ESAs or scholarships to attend a school of their parents’ choice. Newly empowered parents can now question schools’ approaches to classroom instruction and choose learning environments with high-quality teaching that applies best practices.
However, federal education R&D is at a crossroads in 2025. The Trump administration has proposed significant budget reductions to NSF. This follows substantial reductions at the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). While the administration and Congress should pursue opportunities to increase efficiency within NSF, IES, and other federal agencies, the administration and Congress have an opportunity to modernize federal education R&D programs to increase their return on investment. With thoughtful reform, the U.S. can apply the findings and best practices identified through decades of federally funded R&D and make that information more available to school leaders, teachers, and parents.
To that end, I respectfully request that the Subcommittee support education R&D programs within the NSF budget. The Alliance for Learning Innovation has recommended “at least $1.246 billion for the STEM EDU Directorate at NSF and continued support for scaling and sustaining STEM education research.” In addition, I recommend the Subcommittee include report language aimed at increasing the return on investment from federally funded education R&D activities in the following ways:
First, Congress should require NSF to publish the outcomes of all current and recent federally funded research projects to help the American public learn lessons and identify best practices for improving students’ learning opportunities. For example, in the report accompanying the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies funding bill in 2024, the Appropriations Committee included the following language that required the Department of Education to publish outcomes of projects funded through the Education Innovation and Research program:
The Committee specifically encourages the Department to showcase those programs that have dem-onstrated, through rigorous research as required by the ESEA, that their innovations show specific evidence of achievement in educational outcomes.
The Subcommittee should require similar transparency from NSF.
Second, the Subcommittee should encourage NSF, in consultation with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to establish a national strategy for mobilizing research evidence to promote effective learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This national strategy should be written to inform students, parents, teachers, and other education stakeholders about best-practices.
Third, the Subcommittee should direct NSF to create a STEM education research evidence hub, including by leveraging artificial intelligence, to synthesize research findings and inform parents, teachers, and other stakeholders about evidence-based best practice. In a recent essay, Learn Capital’s Matthew Barry presented a vision for an AI tool to make education research findings more accessible. He described a Learning Science Evidence Hub as a “next-generation knowledge platform that democratizes access to learning science research. It transforms dense academic findings into practical, actionable insights for anyone making educational decisions—from classroom teachers to product developers, parents to policymakers.” Recognizing this vision, Congress should require NSF to create an evidence hub for STEM education research.
Fourth, the Subcommittee should direct NSF to convene a national panel on mathematics instruction focused on early numeracy and to issue a report by July 4, 2026, on recommendations for national best practices for mathematics instruction. In 1997, Congress directed the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Department of Education to convene a National Reading Panel, which analyzed around 100,000 studies and found strong support for the “science of reading”—an approach emphasizing phonemic awareness phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These findings of this report have informed a national movement to use evidence-based practices for early reading instruction. In Louisiana, the state superintendent of education credited the state’s use of the “science of reading” as a reason why the state achieved progress on NAEP reading test scores compared to other states across the country. In 2008, the Department of Education issued a report from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, which was created by executive order, to provide similar guidance on evidence-based strategies for mathematics instruction. However, to date, there has been no successful “science of math” movement. A new national panel focused on early numeracy could revisit the 2008 panel’s findings, review available research on early numeracy development, and issue new guidance on improving mathematics instruction.
