Deleted by Design? The Politics of Erasing Educational Technology Access and History
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By Natalie B. Milman
The mission of the Civics of Technology is:
to empower students and educators to critically inquire into the effects of technologies on their individual and collective lives. We conduct research, develop curriculum, and offer professional development. Our work seeks to advance democratic, ethical, and just uses of technology in schools and society. (Civics of Technology, CoT, n.d., para. 1)
Implementing this mission involves conducting, analyzing, and synthesizing research, among other important tasks, in addition to having access to myriad resources such as data, reports, and white papers posted on government, think tank, and university websites. Yet, this past April, while I was preparing to serve as a panelist for a session at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting, I wanted to re-read all of the U.S. National Educational Technology Plans (NETP) and include current links to the NETPs. The reports had been deleted from the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDOE) website following cuts of the USDOE by the Department of Government Efficiency (Barshay, 2025). While I downloaded all of the reports when published, I wanted to provide links to them for those who might not have them.
Even my university library has a statement regarding access to previously available resources. The following quote shows up on the library website when conducting searches,
Some government document links may be unavailable due to changes within government agencies. The Data Preservation Efforts and Data Sources resource guide provides up-to-date guidance on alternative sources where data is being preserved and efforts to help researchers locate datasets. (GW Libraries, n.d., para. 1)
Although such actions should come as no surprise, they have detrimental effects. I was able to locate the reports on non-DOE websites and the reports are now available on the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) website due to renewal of some of the USDOE’s funding. However, the fact that they were deleted and were inaccessible from their primary location highlights challenges in maintaining continuity in educational technology policy across different government administrations. Hodges and Moore (2025) aptly described how “This lack of continuity reflects a broader pattern where educational technology initiatives frequently fall victim to political turnover” (p. 684). Other actions such as “painting over a Black Lives Matter mural” and “temporarily scrubbing web stories of Navajo Code Talkers” (Dirks, 2025, para. 1), raise concerns about our history and the public availability of important data and reports housed on government websites. And,
In addition to deleting important NETP reports (and history) from the USDOE website, there have been significant cuts to the USDOE and the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) which houses the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). Each of these is a critical source of research and data, not only for CoT researchers, but also educational leaders, educators, students, policy makers, as well other interested parties, such as the general public. Continued collection and access to these data are crucial for “advanc[ing] democratic, ethical, and just uses of technology in schools and society,” (Civics of Technology, n.d., para. 1) and imperative for achieving the CoT mission. Cuts to the USDOE will have significant impacts, not only to students, schools, and communities impacted by budget cuts, but also the research, data, and reports that have been collected and housed on these sites. For over 158 years, NCES has been a source of research, data, and reports about U.S. P12 and higher education.
The deletion of these reports from the USDOE site shows how fragile continuity of educational data is and how easy it is to erase research and history of educational technology, including ed tech policy. It also is a threat to science, research, civics, and democracy. The impacts of the USDOE cuts will likely have long-lasting effects for years to come, but it is clear that there will be less access to research and data.
Data preservation efforts are underway led by Common Crawl and the Internet Archive (Parker, 2025), as well as many universities that have established data preservation efforts. Another promising effort is the Data Rescue Project (n.d.) which has been working to backup data sets at risk. Its “goal is to serve as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk” (Data Rescue Project, n.d., para. 2). Ensuring long-term access to USDOE research, data, and reports is imperative. It is a shame such measures are needed.
Where Can We Find the U.S. National Technology Plans?
The National Educational Technology Plans can be accessed via the links embedded in the report titles, on the ERIC website (but no longer on the USDOE website), as of the date this post was published:
1. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2000). eLearning: Putting a world‑class education at the fingertips of all children. First NETP, following Educate America Act of 2000).
2. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2004). Toward a new golden age in American education: How the internet, the law and today’s students are revolutionizing expectations.
3. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2010). Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology.
4. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2016). Future ready learning: Reimagining the role of technology in education.
5. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update.
6. United States Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2024, January 30). National educational technology plan 2024: A call to action for closing the digital access, design and use divides.
What Should We Do?
Preserving our history is a civic duty—we cannot allow it to be erased. Parker (2025) contends that “as we watch more and more digital information disappear or be rewritten, the onus falls on the people to push back against corporate and governmental deletions and "corrections’” (para. 7). We can take a variety of actions such as archiving research, publishing our work via open access, raising awareness via presentations and Op-Eds, as well as contacting our local and state representatives. Preserving publicly-funded research, reports, and data is a civic responsibility, one that educators, scholars, and citizens must actively defend.
References
Barshay, J. (2025, April 28). Education Department restarts online library ERIC: New contract slashes budget in half, but library will continue to operate. https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-restart-eric-ed-library/
Civics of Technology. (n.d.). About us. https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/aboutus
Data Rescue Project. (n.d.). About Data Rescue Project. https://www.datarescueproject.org/about-data-rescue-project/
Dirks, S. (2025, March 28). Scholars say Trump administration is trying to erase America's non-white history. https://www.npr.org/2025/03/29/nx-s1-5333846/scholars-say-trump-administration-is-trying-to-erase-americas-non-white-history
GW Libraries. (n.d.). Advanced search. Retrieved July 6, 2025, from https://wrlc-gwu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Technology%20as%20a%20Focus%20of%20Education%20Policy&vid=01WRLC_GWA:live&tab=Everything&search_scope=DN_and_CI
Hodges, C. B., & Moore, S. L. (2025). Building a policy research agenda in educational technology: Current disconnects and future recommendations. Journal of Computing in Higher Education 37, 679–694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-025-09441-9
Parker, B. A. (2025, February 14). The revolution will be screenshot (hopefully). https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/g-s1-48925/the-revolution-will-be-screenshot-hopefully