Education Data Center

Education Data Center (published at eddatacenter.org, with the domain zelma.ai redirecting there) hosts what it calls the most comprehensive Grade 3-8 student assessment database in the United States, covering all 50 states, DC, and US territories with data going back to 1998. Content is sourced from public records and federal NCES data, with a public codebook and versioned releases, currently version 3.1, for reproducibility. Users can explore an interactive state and district proficiency map or download filtered CSV data by state, year, grade, subject, and demographic subgroup. The site's AI feature, Zelma, lets users ask questions in plain English and get back a chart, a table, and a written answer without needing spreadsheet skills or creating an account, and generated analyses come with shareable, citable links. An API is also available for R, Stata, and Python. The platform is aimed at researchers, journalists, policymakers, parents, and educators who need school performance data without technical overhead. It is free for research and non-commercial use with attribution, though commercial use requires separate permission. One limitation is that the site does not name the organization or company operating it, or state a founding year, so its institutional backing is not clear from the site alone.