A parent-led look at every digital tool students use — the genuine benefits, the educational trade-offs, and the data privacy questions every school should be asking.
Click any app to read the full review — including what data is collected, who owns it, and what research says about its impact on learning. ⚠ Firm-Owned = owned by an investment firm.
Curriculum Associates (private)
The flagship adaptive learning platform. A 2025 federal lawsuit alleges iReady embeds Google Analytics in student lessons, sending persistent identifiers to Google without parental consent.
Seesaw Learning Inc. (PE: Providence Equity Partners)
The best family communication tool for elementary — parents see real student work. In 2022, hackers sent explicit pornographic content to parents and children through the app. Photos and voice recordings of young children stored on PE-backed servers pursuing an acquisition rollup.
Google LLC / Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)
The Chromebook backbone. Google Classroom is the daily hub where students get assignments and turn in work; it runs on top of Docs, Slides, Drive, Meet, and Gmail. Core Workspace is ad-free under edu agreements, but ChromeOS telemetry still flows to Google. AI features (Gemini) raise new questions.
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (Germany)
Engaging animated science, social studies, math, and ELA videos. Owned by a German media conglomerate — student data may be processed under EU-adjacent law rather than U.S. FERPA.
Securly Inc. (VC-backed)
Every URL a student visits on a school device — including at home — is logged and AI-analyzed. A 2026 class action settlement (undisclosed amount) alleged Securly sold student location data and video history to advertisers. CIPA requires filtering; Securly goes far beyond into comprehensive behavioral surveillance.
Google / Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)
Built for adults, fined $170M for targeting ads at children, used in classrooms anyway. The educational content library is vast — but the platform was designed to maximize watch time, not learning.
IXL Learning / TPG Growth PE
Adaptive math and ELA practice across 10,000+ skills. The SmartScore system is documented to increase math anxiety. A 2024 class action alleges IXL shares student data with third-party brokers without consent; the FTC filed amicus briefs supporting the plaintiffs.
Bain Capital — NYSE: PWSC
The grades-and-schedules backbone. In December 2024, hackers exposed data on 62 million students and 9 million teachers — one of the largest K–12 breaches in history. PowerSchool paid a ransom but cannot confirm the data was deleted. Multiple class action lawsuits from affected families were filed in 2025.
Renaissance Learning / Francisco Partners PE
Teacher-led interactive slides where every student responds in real time. Francisco Partners also owns Renaissance STAR testing — one firm can correlate lesson engagement with standardized test scores for the same child. A 2024 lawsuit alleged Renaissance Learning violated student privacy laws; dismissed Feb 2026 on pleading grounds, not a vindication of its data practices.
HMH / Veritas Capital PE — $2.8B acquisition
Rated "Strong" by Johns Hopkins for math outcomes — but its 2024 Privacy Notice disclosed sharing student behavioral data with advertising and analytics partners. Veritas Capital owns both DreamBox and Raz-Kids.
Vistria Group (firm, Chicago)
Study Island, Exact Path, and Courseware under one firm-owned umbrella. Multiple brands with separate privacy policies make it harder for parents to know what data is collected from which product.
Mackin Educational Resources (private, family-connected)
Among the safest apps in this review — no ads, no data sale, Student Privacy Pledge signatory. Main concern: digital reading produces lower comprehension than print, and schools never own the books they pay for.
Cambium Learning / Veritas Capital PE
800+ leveled digital books with voice recording. Children as young as 5 are recorded reading aloud — that audio lives on firm-owned servers. Part of the Veritas Capital education data monopoly.
Capstone Publishers / Coughlan Companies (family-owned)
COPPA-compliant, no advertising, SDPC-reviewed. The concern is developmental: does a digital research database serve PreK–3 children better than physical books, hands-on inquiry, and adult read-aloud?
Scratch Foundation (nonprofit) — no data collected
The most privacy-friendly app in this review — nonprofit, no advertising, no student accounts required. Core question: should screen-based coding displace physical play and building for ages 5–7?
Cengage Group (ex-creditors: KKR, Apax PE)
National Geographic Learning's Our World series — genuinely high-quality ELL and world studies content. Post-bankruptcy ownership structure includes firm creditors. Physical print options exist and are recommended.
Learning Without Tears (independent, OT-informed)
OT-informed keyboarding instruction starting in kindergarten. Not a data concern — the concern is developmental: teaching a 5-year-old to type before handwriting is consolidated reverses a critical neurological sequence.
MakeMusic / Peaksware (Vista Equity PE)
Interactive music practice with pitch feedback and performance recording. firm-backed company stores audio recordings of students' voices and instrument play — biometric-adjacent data parents rarely know about.
Bow Street LLC (PE) — Pearson spinoff
Words Their Way has one of the strongest research bases in literacy. The concern: firm ownership has digitized what was a hands-on physical word sort program, replacing card manipulation with screen taps — losing the kinesthetic benefit.
Typing.com LLC (for-profit) — free tier is ad-supported
Common Sense Media's "Warning" rating — its most serious concern level. The free version serves behavioral advertisements to students during school hours. Students are the product.
CommonLit 501(c)(3) — grant & subscription funded
One of the most educationally sound reading platforms available — nonprofit, free core tier, diverse high-quality texts, and a parent portal. Still: digital reading produces shallower comprehension than print.
Independent — created by a math teacher
One of LMSD's best EdTech choices: teacher-created, independently operated, no firm/VC ownership, no gamification. Immediate corrective feedback with worked examples is among the most evidence-based math practice approaches.
Edpuzzle Inc. (VC-backed)
Teachers embed questions into videos; student viewing is tracked second by second — every pause, skip, and rewind logged. Per-second behavioral tracking of a child's video consumption is among the most granular data collection in K–12.
NoRedInk Corp. (VC-backed)
Grammar practice personalized using student interest profiles. Students share their preferences in books, music, celebrities, sports — building a psychographic profile of a 12-year-old. VC-backed acquisition risk is real.
Generation Genius Inc. (independent, subscription-funded)
High-quality NGSS-aligned science videos featuring real scientists. Independently owned, subscription-funded, modest data collection. The concern is pedagogical: watching science is not doing science.
Texthelp Ltd. (Belfast, UK — UK GDPR applies)
Browser extension adding text-to-speech and word prediction across all websites. Runs on every site a student visits — access scope is total. UK-based company means student data governed by UK GDPR, not U.S. FERPA.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Veritas Capital PE
Core ELA, math, science, and social studies — now firm-owned. Veritas Capital owns HMH + Raz-Kids + DreamBox + NWEA/MAP + Blackboard. One firm spans curriculum, practice, testing, and records for the same students.
Apollo Global Management PE ($650B+ AUM)
135-year-old curriculum publisher under Apollo Global — one of the world's largest firms. DOJ previously blocked a McGraw-Hill/Cengage merger on monopoly grounds. Districts have near-zero leverage at contract renewal.
Kuder Inc. (independent, since 1934)
Career interest assessments for middle schoolers. Long-validated methodology — but creating a career and values profile for an 11-year-old treats identity as fixed when research shows middle school interests are poor predictors of adult careers.
Educational Vistas Inc. (independent)
One of the most rigorously validated reading assessments available. Independently owned, narrow scope, decades of research support. Relatively low data risk — the main concern is how DRP scores are used in placement decisions.
Martina Bex / Garbanzo (independent, educator-created)
Leveled world language reading built on comprehensible input methodology — one of the most evidence-based approaches to language acquisition. Educator-created, independently operated, modest data footprint. Small indie acquisition risk.
MusicFirst Ltd. (Cambridge, UK — UK GDPR applies)
Cloud-based music notation, recording, and theory tools from a UK company. Student compositions and audio recordings stored on UK servers, governed by UK GDPR rather than U.S. FERPA.
The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT)
Real journalism in the classroom — genuinely valuable for news literacy. NYT collects student graduation year — enabling a subscriber pipeline from school accounts to adult subscribers after graduation.
TCI / Activate Learning (independent educational publisher)
Educator-designed interactive curriculum for social studies and science. Not firm-owned. The concern is pedagogical — digital curriculum displaces physical textbooks and hands-on investigation, not data privacy.
Paideia Institute 501(c)(3) — nonprofit classical languages
Digital tools for Latin instruction from the nonprofit Paideia Institute. One of LMSD's most mission-aligned EdTech choices. Latin itself has a strong academic benefit — and this is one of the cleanest platforms delivering it.
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LMSD doesn't publish a public breakdown of what it pays per vendor. Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law gives residents the right to request public contracts — ask the district to produce the contract, cost, and renewal terms for any app on this page.
PA Office of Open Records →Under FERPA, you have the right to request all educational records LMSD holds on your child — including usage logs for any of these apps and any data shared with third parties. Submit a written request to the district office.
Learn how to request records →Our opt-out petition asks LMSD to allow families to opt their children out of 1:1 devices and mandatory EdTech, returning to pen-and-paper alternatives without academic penalty.
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