AEM developed the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) to give needed tools and a common data vocabulary to all education data stakeholders.

CEDS enables users to have more accurate, timely, and consistent data. It informs decision-making, decreases staff burden associated with deciphering data, and helps education stakeholders more efficiently work together.

To accelerate its adoption in the education data community, AEM has invested in building relationships that have led to ongoing, open communication with education data organizations. These relationships have promoted state use of the CEDS standards and tools for data collection, data management, and data use, and they have also enhanced collaboration with other ED initiatives to provide high-quality technical assistance to states. As a result, more than 2,500 education stakeholders in 49 states and 3 territories now follow AEM-developed best practices in transparency, collection, and storage.

Education data context and goals can vary by organization, so CEDS strives to develop data management tools that are both versatile and powerful—powerful enough to collectively support the long-term data management goals for almost any stakeholder, yet versatile enough that a single tool can sufficienty address immediate needs.