Illuminations and Insights
We shine a light on our partners, the work we've done across the country, and insights from our team members.
Day in the Life: Q&A with Implementation Delivery Lead Christian Faulkner
Get to know Implementation Delivery Lead Christian Faulkner in the latest installment of our "Day in the Life" blog series. In this blog, Christian describes what interested him in working at EA, why connecting technology to student outcomes is so rewarding, and how he anticipates the ed tech field will continue to focus on supporting the school-to-workforce transition in the coming years.
Five Years, Six Networks, and a Foundation for What Came Next
At the start of 2026, Education Analytics (EA) closed out a five-year grant that became one of the most formative chapters in EA’s history. The work — supporting six Networks for School Improvement (NSIs) across California through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — pioneered infrastructure that helped shape many of the products that EA builds today. Services Delivery Lead Brianna Pollari and Senior Technical Program Manager of Data Science Drew McDermott, who were heavily involved in NSI work, describe the challenges and triumphs of building this infrastructure in this blog.
Building Shared Data Infrastructure for Public Education: EDU, Databricks, and the Power of Community Code
Enable Data Union (EDU) is now compatible with Databricks. EDU was built on the principle that shared data infrastructure for public education should be open, standards-based, and never locked to a single vendor. When the Tennessee Department of Education told us their environment ran on Microsoft and Databricks — and switching wasn't an option — we saw an opportunity to prove that open, vendor-neutral infrastructure was possible. Thanks to a close collaboration with Tennessee's team, including direct code contributions, EDU now runs on Databricks. One state's contribution becomes a starting point for every agency that comes after them. Technical Lead Manager Rob Little shares the full story in this blog.
Building with Purpose: Best Practices for Implementing Ed-Fi and EdTech Solutions
Vice President of Implementation & Services Silvia Brunet-Jones has more than 25 years of experience in educational technology and data systems, with career-spanning roles as a software engineer, solutions architect, researcher, and executive leader. Her work has focused on designing scalable data infrastructures, advancing interoperability through Ed-Fi, and driving strategic implementation across state agencies, school districts, and nonprofit organizations. In this blog, Silvia outlines five essential elements that create the successful implementation of educational technology within school districts and broader education systems.
