A federal class-action lawsuit filed by several Californian parents on Dec. 22, 2025, raises serious concerns against i-Ready regarding the company’s data handling practices. This lawsuit alleges that Curriculum Associates, the creator of i-Ready, unlawfully gathers, shares and profits from student data without consent from the student or their parents.
This lawsuit was initiated by the parents of several students, Nicki Petrossi, who is the founder of Scroll to Death and co-founder of the TechSafe Learning Coalition (TLC). Pertrossi, alongside a group of other parents of K-12 students in California, supported and represented by EdTech Law Center, brought forth this lawsuit. EdTech Law Center, an organization that, according to its own website, is dedicated to ensuring that educational technology companies are held legally accountable for any harm they may cause to students. Their dedication to student protection is evident with ten ongoing cases, including a lawsuit against Google concerning the alleged failure to prevent harm from defective products.
The central concern addressed in this lawsuit is the privacy rights of students concerning their data. The i-Ready program, like many other educational tools, gathers extensive information about how students learn, their performance levels and their engagement in specific topics. The lawsuit accuses Curriculum Associates of using this data for its own financial gain, ignoring required procedures to gain consent from students and their families. The plaintiffs’ complaint states that when a student uses the i-Ready platform for a diagnostic assessment or a personalized lesson, those interactions cause information about the student and the student’s activity to be generated, recorded and instantaneously transmitted to third parties outside of i-Ready.
The plaintiff utilizes many California laws to support their claim, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), Cal. Penal Code § 638.51, which prohibits tracking user data without a court order or user consent. While this case is specifically set in California, it could potentially affect students and schools across the country, including many in Illinois. Curriculum Associates’ lies about student protection may cause Illinois school districts to reassess their use of i-Ready, depending on the case’s outcome.
As of April 2026, the lawsuit is still ongoing with Curriculum Associates filing motions to dismiss, which will be heard by the Judge in the near future.
