Illuminations and Insights

K-12 has lived through many “next big things” in edtech. Some have delivered real value, especially in large-scale data collection and adaptive learning. But across states and districts, student outcome progress and gaps remain stubborn, and leaders are rightly skeptical that a new wave of AI tools alone will change that. This is not simply a failure of technology. It reflects a basic fact: no algorithm can solve challenges rooted in resource inequities or social conditions. What AI can do is help educators, policymakers, and researchers reason more clearly with the information they already have. That only works if the data are accurate, standardized, and connected, and if the people closest to students remain in charge of how those data are used. In this blog, Vice President of Data Science Dan Jarratt discusses how, in order to ensure that AI systems that are effective, auditable, and equitable for students, we must start with something more basic: open, interoperable, standardized data infrastructure that public agencies can govern and sustain.

Get to know Technical Product Manager Katie O'Brien in the latest installment of our Day in the Life blog series. In the blog, Katie discusses her journey from intern to full-time staff member at EA, her involvement in product development for our data visualization tool, Podium, and how she thinks technology advancements will bring about new changes and insights to the EdTech space in the coming year.

Efforts to modernize organizational operations often center on a familiar triad: people, process, and technology. More recently, data has become a fourth, indispensable dimension, woven into every aspect of how organizations operate. At Education Analytics (EA), we've seen firsthand how beginning modernization with any single dimension — and addressing the others in a linear sequence — creates a Gordian knot. Each attempt to optimize one strand tightens the others, stalling progress and increasing friction. In our latest blog, CEO Andrew Rice and COO Libby Pier share EA’s approach to a parallel, people-centered model of governance--one that treats data, software, and process as interconnected and equal pillars of modernization. They introduce the prism model, a framework that can help districts and states accelerate their digital transformation efforts--and that has helped us begin to untangle our own Gordian knot as an organization. By managing these dimensions together through creativity, collaboration, and conflict resolution, people drive meaningful and lasting progress.

To ensure that dashboards genuinely help educators, we start with the end in mind: what data should be included, how it should be displayed, and why it will be useful for the people who rely on it. Rally, EA's data visualization product, is meant to provide a snapshot of student data, with one key area being assessment data. Rally is not meant to replace the detailed reports provided by assessment vendors. Instead, it is meant to provide an effective overview of that data. Therefore, at EA, we strive to make well-informed decisions on what to display so teachers and administrators can access the right data at the right time to make the right decisions. In this blog, Product Manager Joshua Terchek and Senior Data Engineer Manager Susan Xiong discuss the process of building out these meaningful dashboards within our data visualization products, Rally Analytics Platform and Podium.

Every fall, the Ed-Fi Alliance hosts its annual Ed-Fi Summit conference to bring together state and local education leaders, EdTech providers, educators, and technical experts who are turning data into real solutions for students. Several EA staff attended Ed-Fi Summit 2025 and left the conference energized by the dedication, expertise, and passions of people within the Ed-Fi community that they learned from, presented to, and chatted with at Ed-Fi Summit. In this blog, EA staff share some of their key reflections after attending, presenting, and collaborating at Ed-Fi Summit 2025.

Twice a year, Education Analytics’ (EA) staff from across the country come to our office in Madison, Wisconsin, for collaborative meetings, team retreats, and skill- building. For Summer Week 2025, we hosted our first-ever EA Conference. EA staff from every team submitted proposals with ideas, product innovations, operational success stories, or knowledge they wished to socialize with the rest of the organization. The conference featured more than 20 sessions, with formats ranging from individual talks and panel discussions to demos and workshops. Curious about what we covered at the EA Conference? Dive into this blog recap for highlights from sessions and discussions.