DISCLAIMER!

Most statements made it in such as why teachers rely is a guess on why. While there is no exact answer because everyone does everything different. Its also not just  i-Ready im not trying to out all the drama on it when its jut like most platforms. Learning platforms are not great, all are bad in similar reasons though the truth is I don't want to put the rest of my childhood into removing every last one so even this change idea was not intended. I just wanted to try to help out the community, because all the platforms that I know are bad angers me that we use them. So all direct messages i-Ready may differ or be accused as false. Its your opinion. 

Introduction

i-Ready is a US learning platform with over 14 million users complete lessons and doing diagnostics, it was founded in 2009 by curriculum associates, A company with roughly around 300 million dollars in net worth and multiple learning platforms. Now over 17 years later i-Ready is an assignment usually being 2 lessons passed or 30 minutes by end of week, Also pausing i-Ready for diagnostics 3 times a year. 

THE ROOT

i-Ready is Split into 3 programs in the app: i-Ready, i-Ready Pro, and i-Ready diagnostic. With i-Ready split into 2 subjects: reading and math, and each subject having a grade level average using letters (AA = kinda garden, A = 1st grade, B, C, D, E, F, G, H) 

Then i-Ready pro starts in 7th grade keeping the subjects reading and math but removing the letter grade system. They have different topics you get to chose from and have to complete all the lessons and a quiz at the end of each topic.

The i-Ready diagnostic is the big test for i-Ready which tells you where you're at. You have to answer questions each round around 1-3 % of the diagnostic. You get 2-3 breaks with mini games for i-Ready and breathing exercises for Pro. At the end of the diagnostic it will tell you a score from 100-800. 

Altogether this is made to keep kids occupied with semi homework lessons to complete each week and a diagnostic 3 times a year. All the way to 8th grade.

THE ISSUE

i-Ready's setup is poorly designed. Teachers cannot view students work and how they are improving or not. Also they are unable to know what students are getting wrong and right. Other programs allow teachers to choose and make assignments by viewing how students went through them. According to Dianeravitch, "The teacher can never see the questions the child answered correctly or incorrectly, nor can she even access a description of the kinds of questions the child answered correctly or incorrectly." Dianervitch explains how i-Ready has no way to view the score of the questions or lessons except for the percent at the end. Teachers have no info on what questions there asking or if a student spends a long time on it or not. The most teachers can assign certain lessons picked out for students to complete with a due date. However, the teacher has no information. Which is a huge issue because teachers are supposed to help their kids with stuff they struggle on and teach them. Not have an app overview their entire score and just make lessons easier or harder ignoring the ones they're struggling on.

i-Ready's Diagnostics don't get any better either because it uses a system that detects the answer that the person chose and then picks from a list of questions of which would best fit them based of there results. Due to this, Students in 7th grade can result in 3rd grade questions because the list kept choosing power and power questions. This makes sense because i-Ready wants to see where the level of the student is by choosing from this list and once you finish you get your score. However i-Ready just tells you what level you are on in certain categories rather than showing your results like most testing platforms. So the student lowers their level to learn skills they have already learned rather than trying to teach the kid to understand their level that they should be on.

Overall the setup is bland and students most of the time just mindlessly click to get there questions done because they don't care. Students would rather do this than try because i-Ready's setup is not interesting to kids. Sure lower levels have fun games and animations, though it still doesn't interest them. They just see it as another learning program thats no more than to help them learn in school except its not graded. Others just stare at the screen fore minutes and click when it says are you still there so they can complete the task faster. Overhauling some students freak out over this program that is truly horrible. They freak out when they fail lessons or get a lower score on the diagnostic. Which increases stress to another level. i-Ready makes it seem like when they mess up, there not smart enough or they shouldn't be in this grade. Along with lower grade levels like 5th grader doing 3rd grade stuff or a student who got 20 points lower on the diagnostic both think that there doing worst in school.

THE BENEFIT 

What are the benefits of i-Ready? Well after doing a deep search I found that only curriculum associates (creators of i-Ready) And a few other sources state why it is good. According to Kristen Braatz "i-Ready is a powerful and beneficial assessment tool. For example, if a student answers a series of questions on a topic correctly, subsequent questions get harder. Although the test may seem challenging, the assessment helps chart an individual course for each student, and you can measure progress using visual data tools about what your students already know and still need to learn." She also states that this tool is reliable because over 13 million kids across the US use this assessment tool. She examples how the series or list is based on questions. If they get it right, it gets harder, if they get it wrong, it gets easier.

However that's just the problem with i-Ready. It charts the course of each student and determines what to give them next. If a student completes a lesson and gets a %83, i-Ready will see this and give them a slightly same but bit harder lesson. Though it does not review what the student got wrong with the previous lesson. While it does explain this inside of the lesson when they get it wrong, there's no way to know how the student was thinking on the question and how he solved it. There is no explaining how he/she thought to truly know if they understood or not. Other programs either get reviewed after or during its lesson or assignment by a teacher. Students have the ability to raise their hand and ask for help however some teachers do not even understand the questions due to the grade level being too high. This has happened to many students before;   I have seen, even myself, had a teacher clueless on a problem and saying "just guess".

WHY DO TEACHERS RELY ON i-READY?

Most schools and teachers rely on using i-Ready as an assessment just to give them work to do during school. Though if i-Ready was this horrible, why haven't teachers noticed? According to Nancy Bailey "There’s concern that teachers might rely on iReady data for grading rather than their professional expertise." She explains that teachers simply rely on i-Ready because of data for grading. She also explained that i-Ready provides data report of the child but never sees the questions answered or results. So they simply use i-Ready as a easy grading tool that they look into as helping the student rather than actually noticing if it is Increasing or decreasing their Academic skills. Schools often chose to use i-Ready because of the numbers. i-Ready has good reviews with over 13 million kids using it, so schools see this and look at what it is just a bit rather than truly understanding what it is.

THE COMPLAINS, REVIEWS, & STORIES 

• Another piece of evidence that schools rely on i-Ready takes place with this 4th grade girl who finished i-Ready/tested out. This means she doesn't have to do it any more and she waits for Alex to start however, this was not the case. She was forced to still do i-Ready all the way up to 8th grade because as her teachers said, "It wouldn't be fair for her not to do i-Ready and the class has to" Even though she went through all the work to finish it. This is most likely because the teacher didn't expect a student to ever test out this early so they made her still do it because they needed something to give her the time.

1. Dane valentine, Member of SO  - No. 
2. Carson Plank, Member of SO  - 0/10
3. Arjun Modi, Member of SO  - My personal thought is that iready doesn't teach anyone about the topic we are learning in our common core classes. My review on iready is a 0/100 because iready sucks and their tests are not good compared to our tests our teachers assign.
4. Kai Slagle, Member of SO - I dont know if this is the worst thing, but the diagnostics are horrible, like if you get a question right the next one is harder?!? and if you get one wrong the next one is easier, SO 2ND GRADERS COULD BE DOING 9TH GRADE LEVEL QUESTIONS AND 8TH GRADERS DOING 1ST!??!?!?!? 0/10 
5. jacob tietjen, Member of SO - I ready is the most boring and uneducational learning program i have ever taken part in. It is sloppy and uninteresting for kids. Minecraft has taught me more than iready
6. jackson benitez, Member of SO - I-Ready is a site that makes students like me tired and bored it also makes people have less social skills also the lessons don't teach 
7. Sincere Thompson, Member of SO - I-READY IS GARBAGE BRO. Bro first of all why the heck when you answer a question it moves up THE LENGTH OF AN ATOM and why we gotta do MULTIPLE of those lessons per WEEK PLUS 45 MINUTES. And I'm losing braincells per lesson 😭. So please, GET RID OF I-READY FOR good.
8. Marshall Vansant, Member of SO - i-Read is by far the worst most absolute boring thing in the world. I hasn't taught me anything and is just a huge waist of my time. I have gained ZERO meaningful knowledge from this platform and it should be illegal to make students do this
9. Cameron Mccoy, Member of SO - I-Ready is a heavy burden for us students.
10. Dian Diallo, Member of SO - i-Ready needs to be banned because people say it's dangerous 
11. mersen feyisa, Member of SO - i‑Ready often leaves us students feeling more stressed and depleted. The lessons and long adaptive tests are super frustrating especially when the questions suddenly jump in difficulty and make us feel like they’re failing!!!!!! There is an imbalance between the length of the instruction versus the length of the quiz which leads many to rush to get to the quiz (second half of the lesson.) Teachers and parents are also concerned that the program’s long screen time (45-90 mins a week) replaces participation in the classroom limiting educational socialization. All of this has led many people to worry that instead of boosting learning the platform HARMS student engagement, confidence in their educational ability, mental health, and well‑being.

More reviews from parents and Teachers will result soon.

OUR OPINION

i-Ready is a horrible assessment tool that should not be used in schools or as tests. As for its horrible system and stress causing questions. There are over 100 pentiotins on this site to remove it, this is one more.

if you agree with us then sign this petition. 

And remember, this was written by a student with help of students.