NPR is reporting that the Trump administration's effort to reshape the Education Department has made the agency's work more complex and potentially inefficient, at an unknown cost to taxpayers. It said Education Secretary Linda McMahon has described cutting through layers of federal red tape as an essential piece of the department's final mission. NPR said its reporters Jonaki Mehta and Cory Turner spoke with five Education Department employees, all of whom asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly and fear professional repercussions. Those staffers said the changes have made it harder to serve states and schools that rely on billions of dollars in federal money to educate students who need the most support, including low-income students and those with disabilities. NPR said the administration also made costly changes to where staffers work, scattering them across several federal agencies, and that some employees said those moves did not appear aimed at particular improvements. One staffer told NPR that much of the frustration stems from a solution devised for a problem that was never identified.
NPR is also reporting that research funding is being fundamentally altered by the Trump administration. It said National Institutes of Health grants have over decades helped researchers decipher the human genome, eliminate the polio virus in the United States and turn AIDS from a death sentence into a survivable illness. NPR said experts contend that this kind of fundamental science is now coming up against an administration that has delayed funding and rerouted billions of dollars in research, resulting in chaos for researchers and patients alike. Trump officials said the administration's practices serve to further the agency's goals, NPR reported.
Separately, NPR is reporting that persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness among high school students fell from 42 percent in 2021 to 33 percent in 2025. It said new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found improvements in the number of students who ate fruits and vegetables compared with a previous survey. NPR said the latest Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey focused on nutrition, exercise, sleep, screen time and mental health, but left out topics such as teen smoking and vaping and exposure to violence. It said the data also omits discussion of health disparities among ethnic groups, which was a feature of past reports.
NPR is reporting that a new national survey conducted between April and June 2026 by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 40 percent of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from medical care because of immigration concerns. It said 30 percent reported seeing families hesitant to apply for public health services and support, such as Medicaid. NPR said doctors report that some families in their practices are avoiding sending their children to school.