Michigan Launches Innovative Data Lake to Transform Education

The Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators (MAISA) is establishing a statewide, cloud-native data lake aimed at revolutionizing how educators and school districts utilize information to enhance student success from prenatal stages through to workforce entry. This initiative comes after MAISA was awarded the 2025 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Award in July for its efforts in transforming the state’s educational data framework.

Since 2013, Michigan has worked to standardize and distribute essential data to its school districts. Nevertheless, the existing system has significant limitations. It has struggled to accommodate statewide or inter-agency use, lacked advanced tools like artificial intelligence for predictive insights, and could not effectively connect disparate district systems. The new data lake, named Michigan Data Lake, aims to address these challenges, allowing schools to transition from reactive to proactive strategies and improve outcomes across diverse regions and student demographics.

Modernizing Educational Data Systems

According to Tammy Evans, project development director for MAISA’s Michigan IT, the state has recognized the need to redevelop its educational data systems due to barriers that obstruct actionable insights. Evans noted that her team conducted a survey in spring 2024, revealing fragmented data systems and restrictions that limit districts’ capabilities in leveraging the full potential of their data.

“In this initiative, what we were trying to do was modernize the way in which we could gather structured and unstructured data into a statewide platform,” said Evans. “We wanted to give our educators and students a more accurate reflection of everything.”

The initiative is still in its early stages, with plans to connect student information from multiple sources to facilitate predictive analytics, equity initiatives, and long-term academic and behavioral planning. The initial rollout will include approximately 100 of the state’s 875 school districts as a proof of concept, with an expected launch in the last week of August 2024.

Focus on Educators’ Needs

Experts caution that simply implementing a new data system will not automatically lead to improved educational outcomes. Effective training, thoughtful implementation, and sustained support for educators are essential components of success. Doug Leisenring, project director for the Michigan Data Lake, emphasized the importance of incorporating classroom teachers’ needs into the system’s design process.

“How do we get data to the classroom to improve instruction for kids? What do your teachers need? What is the information your teachers need to improve instruction?” Leisenring stated. “When you start with those questions as your baseline, if you focus on the classroom, the systems will follow.”

Michigan’s initiative is part of a broader trend in educational priorities across the United States. Several states, including Indiana, North Carolina, and Connecticut, are investing in similar statewide educational data systems. For other state and district leaders, Michigan serves as a model for the potential benefits of centralizing, modernizing, and making educational data more usable.

The vision extends beyond mere information accumulation; the goal is to generate better insights that can facilitate proactive interventions, support equity, and enhance long-term planning. Leisenring anticipates that in five to ten years, the ultimate objective will be to establish a unified data storage solution for Michigan’s educational system.

“Other states will be able to learn from that,” he noted. “We’ll be able to learn together, which I think is the most powerful part of education. People figure things out and they share it. Once a few of our states get rolling with this, there will be a model for others to follow.”