i-Ready is i-Running Scared
Its publisher is now counter-programming against ME.
Greetings Epostates!
QUICK UPDATE: With Part 3 of “i-Ready i-Reckoning” nearly completed, earlier this week I contacted i-Ready publisher Curriculum Associates to give them an opportunity to comment on several of my findings. While they did not respond, they evidently found my line of questioning sufficiently pants-soiling to start buying Google ads against searches of my name, attempting to redirect the public to their “Research Library” of self-glazing internal studies:
With Los Angeles Unified School District voting earlier this week to purge screens from grades K-2, the entire ed-tech industry is panicking. LAUSD is the nation’s second-largest K-12 district, and in a breathtaking repudiation of its exiled superintendent, the ed-tech puppet Alberto Carvalho, it will now completely shield 23% of its students from i-Ready and other e-learning products. Of course, that’s nowhere near enough, but it’s a start, and it makes any renewal of LAUSD’s i-Ready contract in its current $20 million form impossible. That’s real money — and it’s only the first domino.
For 15 years, i-Ready was spared virtually all scrutiny, enabling it to cast a science-washed spell over school boards that fueled its meteoric rise and made kids (including mine) utterly miserable. I’m proud that my initial i-Ready investigation for UnHerd helped fuel more dialogue and excellent scrutiny. But now, post-LAUSD vote, further critical coverage literally represents an existential threat to i-Ready. Unfortunately for Curriculum Associates, I’m less than halfway through releasing my findings, which is why they really don’t want anyone to read Part 3 of “i-Ready Reckoning” — but you’ll receive it first, this coming Monday.
Thanks for your support, and kindly share this series with your closest two or three hundred friends…
Toodles!
- John Allen Wooden
[UPDATE: The Google keyword ads targeting my name stopped running within 24 hours after I posted about them here and on LinkedIn, where I tagged Curriculum Associates and purchased a “boost” to ensure the post reached an audience of education professionals nationwide. Tit for tat, as it were.]
i-Ready i-Reckoning:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4: Coming June 8, 2026
Fwiw, I’m located in Alaska and your name also generates a “truth about iReady” statement from Curriculum Associates, lol. So it’s definitely not just you! (I wish I could add a pic!)
Congrats! Keep holding their feet to the fire, I’m proud of the work you are doing.
My school district will completely discontinue iready for all grades we use it for next year. My state took it off its list of approved benchmark assessments a few years ago. iready is a joke both as an assessment tool and an intervention tool and I have thought this for years. And the further up in the grades kids go the more they hate it and just click through every question without even reading. I have so many things I dislike about it for so many reasons. So glad people are beginning to write about it.