The definitive critical exposé of Curriculum Associates — the shadowy firm that made e-learning platform i-Ready into mandatory misery for 14 million K-8 American students. Covering the i-Ready controversy: the teachers complaining it wastes valuable class time and is bad for students, the bored-senseless kids screaming “i-Ready sucks!,” the growing list of i-Ready lawsuits, the experts calling it unproven and dangerous, and the parental backlash that’s triggering national news scrutiny and calls to get i-Ready banned. This is the investigation that Curriculum Associates tried to stop you from reading — by Emmy-winning Late Night TV producer John Allen Wooden.
Part 1: i-Ready: the Ed-Tech Snake Oil Making Kids Dumber
Examining Curriculum Associates' science-washing marketing and classroom surveillance, and how i-Ready’s so-called “personalized learning” sucks the life out of schools — driving veteran teachers to quit in frustration and bored-senseless kids everywhere to call it “a medieval torture method.”
Part 2: The “Extraordinary Educators” Scam Turning Young Teachers Into Ed-Tech Shills
The i-Ready scandal hiding in plain sight: how publisher Curriculum Associates exploits educators for publicity and profit using bogus awards, flattery, and luxury travel junkets. With “honorees” groomed into on-camera social media spokespersons, one alumnus says the program uses teachers & principals “as pawns to sell a product.”
Part 3: i-Ready and John Hattie: A Marriage Made in Huckster Heaven
How controversial education guru John Hattie — whose Visible Learning research is widely derided as “pseudoscience,” “a house of cards,” and the work of "a hack fraud" — helps Curriculum Associates peddle video game addiction to fad-prone educators.
Part 4: The Screen Time Lies Powering an Ed-Tech Crisis Response
How Curriculum Associates executives, including CEO Kelly Sia and CIO Ty Holmes, gaslight about i-Ready’s harmful impact on kids via a sophisticated PR misinformation campaign. Dishonest semantics and word salad are deployed to rebrand i-Ready screen time as “purposeful,” “intentional,” and “meaningful.”
Part 5
Coming Soon.
RELATED SERIES COVERAGE:
The Pre-Diabetic Farce of the i-Ready Challenge
Thousands of schools bribe kids in the "i-Ready Challenge" with unhealthy sugar to clock maximum screen time. Why? Districts were told there's proof i-Ready increases scores on the high-stakes annual standardized tests that decide school budgets, ratings, and leadership. There is no such proof.
The i-Ready Screen Time Supercut
Curriculum Associates now deploys spokesman Tyrone Holmes to give gaslighting interviews on TV and podcasts, in which he says i-Ready's 17 million child users barely get any screen time. Countless school YouTube channels beg to differ, and this new supercut video neatly condenses them into a brutal rebuttal of CA's screenwashing lies.
i-Ready is i-Running Scared
Desperate to divert Internet traffic away from this series, Curriculum Associates is now buying Google Ads against searches for my name. Holy ill-advised counter-programming! They *really* don't want you reading the painful truths contained in the i-Ready i-Reckoning series....
i-Ready Sued For False Advertising & Brazen Science-Washing
i-Ready now faces yet another class action lawsuit: this time over false advertising claims that its product is educationally legitimate. In a landmark lawsuit filed July 31st in Washington D.C., the Center for Education Progress asserts Curriculum Associates' "diagnostic" product misleads consumers, harms children, and is dishonestly “measured on a loop of its own making.”
Brainrot Video Games Are i-Ready's Oblivious Back-to-School Bonus!
Curriculum Associates National Director Mark Bernstein has big back-to-school news, shamelessly crowing that i-Ready will have even *more* brain-melting VIDEO GAME content. Because what says "learning" quite like endless games of "Pinball Wizard" and "Cat Stacker"?
The i-Ready Revolt Goes Mainstream
NBC News investigator Tyler Kingkade interviewed my son Ward and me for “The revolt against i-Ready: Private equity-backed software faces parent, teacher and student fury,” in which he confirmed many elements of my own investigation, and covered important new ground.
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ALL THE WORLD LOVES A WHISTLEBLOWER! Are you a current or former Curriculum Associates employee, consultant, partner or vendor? If you have information regarding the development of i-Ready and its impact on children that you would like to share, please contact me. Your identity will be kept confidential.
About John Allen Wooden:
Howdy. I’m a tech-traitorous writer, satirist, creative director, and father of an i-Ready victim. Having done hard time in big online media, late night TV, ad agencies, politics, and parenting, I created Epostasy as my little lab for gleefully dismembering all those self-important things. Check out my tech-skeptical kids book series, Screen Time Tales, along with other projects at johnallenwooden.com
