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The Rally Analytics Platform unites student data to provide actionable insights for educators.

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True to our non-profit nature, we believe in sharing our knowledge. We’re motivated by something greater than the bottom-line. We believe in supporting both the health of the education system in the United States and the well-being of each and every student. So we make a point to share what we learn with others who are positioned to make a difference, too.

How to Build Integrated Ed-Fi Infrastructure to Support State and Local Use Cases: A Roadmap for State Education Agencies

3 Takeaways from the Knowledge Alliance Fall Forum on K-12 to Career Pipeline Opportunities

Education Analytics Recognized for Efforts to Expand Ed-Fi Enabled Services to 1.4 Million Students Nationwide

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Stability of School Contributions to Student Social-Emotional Learning Gains

Recent attempts to measure schools’ influence on students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) show differences across schools, but whether these estimated differences measure the true effects of schools remain unclear. To better understand these measures, we examine the stability of estimated school-by-grade effects across two years using large-scale survey data.

COVID-19 Impacts on Learning and Well-Being

This infographic highlights EA's research into changes in learning patterns experienced by students in grades 3–8 in California and South Carolina. Using results from winter 2020–21 interim assessments, EA provides an up-to-date picture of the learning lag students have experienced during the pandemic. EA also highlights findings from a well-being student survey collected during the 2020–21 school year.

Student Well-Being and Learning Conditions During the Pandemic: Evidence from the CORE Districts

We drew on data from the CORE Districts' Student Well-Being and Learning Conditions Survey, given to 32,000 students in Grades 4–12 from three districts at the beginning of the 2020–21 school year and to 15,000 students again a few months later. We examined patterns in responses by student characteristics, the connection between well-being and academic performance, and changes in students' responses from fall to winter.

Evidence-Based Practices for Assessing Students' Social and Emotional Well-Being

This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic.

An IRT Mixture Model for Rating Scale Confusion Associated with Negatively Worded Items in Measures of Social-Emotional Learning

We used mixture IRT models to evaluate confusion due to the negative wording of certain items on a social-emotional learning (SEL) survey. We also evaluated the consequences of the potential confusion. We found evidence of rating scale confusion due to negatively worded items. We also found that confusion was most prevalent at lower grade levels and was positively related to both reading proficiency and ELL status.

Trends in Student Social-Emotional Learning: Evidence From the First Large-Scale Panel Student Survey

We used social-emotional learning survey data to simulate how four constructs—growth mindset, self-efficacy, self-management, and social awareness—develop from grades 4 to 12 and how these trends vary by gender, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity among students for two consecutive years. We found that, with the exception of growth mindset, self-reports of these constructs do not increase monotonically as students move through school; self-efficacy, social awareness, and, to a lesser degree, self-management decrease after Grade 6.

SEL Best Practices Guide

This guide outlines the steps that organizations might consider for measuring students’ social and emotional learning (SEL). We highlight the lessons we have learned from the research that Education Analytics has conducted on SEL survey measures. We also discuss future directions of SEL measurement that policymakers and practitioners at the state and district level should consider.

Can We Measure Classroom Supports for Social-Emotional Learning?

We applied value-added models to student surveys in the CORE Districts to explore whether social-emotional learning (SEL) surveys can be used to measure effective classroom-level supports for SEL. We found that classrooms differ in their effect on students’ growth in self-reported SEL—even after accounting for school-level effects.

School Differences in Social–Emotional Learning Gains: Findings From the First Large-Scale Panel Survey of Students

Using the first large-scale panel surveys of students on SEL, we produced school-level value-added measures by grade for growth mindset, self-efficacy, self-management, and social awareness. We found substantive differences across schools in SEL growth, with magnitudes of differences similar to those for growth in academic achievement, but weaker goodness of fit and smaller across-school variance, suggesting caution in interpreting such measures as causal impacts of schools on SEL.

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Blog

Day in the Life: Q&A with Director of Internal Data & Analytics Annie Nielsen

Annie Nielsen

Get to know our Director of Internal Data & Analytics, Annie Nielsen, in the latest installment of our “Day in the Life” series. In the blog, Annie shares insights into her role leading the development and maintenance of EA’s internal data model and analytic infrastructure, her journey from the Analyst team to the Business Operations team, and her passion for streamlining systems to make work easier for her colleagues.

The "Reimagining IES" Report Just Described Our Vision. Now What?

Andrew Rice

In this blog, CEO Andrew Rice reflects on the new vision document from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences. In the blog, Andrew shares how strongly the vision resonates with the work EA's been building toward for years—especially the call to move education data from a static snapshot to a continuous stream. Real modernization requires shared, durable software. It requires governance, engineering capacity, and cross-state collaboration through models like state consortia. It requires equipping researchers with data engineering skills alongside statistical expertise. Andrew reflects on what it will actually take to make the IES vision a reality—and why this moment matters.

Podcast

Economists of Scale: Using Interoperability Technologies for Efficient Research with Large Datasets with Michael Christian and Sara Hu

January 28, 2026

In the latest episode of the DatabasED podcast, co-hosts Molly Stewart (Senior Product Manager) and Rosh Dhanawade (Vice President of Product) chat with Mike Christian, Principal Researcher, and Sara Hu, Research Scientist I, at Education Analytics. In this episode, Mike and Sara share how interoperability technologies are transforming research in the education sector. They also dive into their experiences using Ed-Fi data, Snowflake, SQL, and dbt documentation to conduct large-scale, efficient research at EA, along with the learning curve researchers face when moving from traditional flat files to modern data warehouses. This conversation highlights how bridging research, data engineering, and educational practice enables faster analysis, resulting in better outcomes for students and education stakeholders.

What’s the Deal with Standards? A Conversation with Eric Hilfer From 1EdTech

October 16, 2025

In the latest episode of the DatabasED podcast, co-hosts Molly Stewart (Director of Research & Analytics Services) and Rosh Dhanawade (Vice President of Interoperability Solutions) chat with Eric Hilfer, Chief Technology Officer at 1EdTech, to discuss the importance of bridging communication gaps among different sectors in education, including databases, teaching, and research. They welcome Eric Hilfer, CTO of 1EdTech, to discuss interoperability standards and 1EdTech's role in standardizing educational technology. Eric shares his background in research, teaching, and EdTech, emphasizing the need for nuanced approaches to AI integration in education. The conversation also touches on the practical aspects of integrating OneRoster with Ed-Fi and the importance of community involvement in standard-setting.

Newsroom

Education Analytics Achieves ISO/IEC 27001 Certification, Completes SOC 2 Audit

January 14, 2026

Education Analytics (EA), a leading education non-profit dedicated to innovative research and technology solutions, announced it achieved ISO/IEC 27001 certification for the first time and successfully completed its Type 2 SOC 2 audit.

Education Analytics Named a 2026 Ed-Fi Alliance Premier Partner for Advancing Effective K–12 Data Practices

December 16, 2025

Education Analytics (EA) has been named a 2026 Ed-Fi Alliance Premier Partner, recognizing EA’s leadership in helping education systems use data more effectively to improve outcomes for students. EA was also recognized as a 2025 Premier Partner.