Hi! It’s Lily and Erica on the national desk. Today’s big story is about the software used by roughly a third of American students that’s been caught up in the backlash against ed tech.

Stick around for details on a plan to fix America’s crumbling — but still architecturally gorgeous, in many cases — school buildings, the skinny on pain at the pump for school buses, and a surprising regression among the country’s youngest learners.

And mark your calendars: On June 11, Chalkbeat Ideas Editor Matt Barnum will talk with Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green and Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner about whether President Donald Trump is, in fact, returning education to the states. RSVP here and submit your questions.

Schools want to know where students are struggling in reading and math.

Enter: i-Ready. In addition to its benchmark assessments, i-Ready’s learning platform is laden with zany animations and so-called “brain breaks” to keep kids absorbed. Millions of students across the country use it. A lot of school districts across the country pay millions of dollars for it.

But there’s a lot of folks not so sure about i-Ready anymore, including parents who want to know that there’s value in the software, and that it’s worth making their kids look at a screen during part of the school day.

Parents told Chalkbeat they didn’t like how it felt like their child was being sucked into a vortex of digital instruction and content, some of which felt too easy or seemed like a distraction from learning.

“It’s just a bunch of digital busy work,” said Stuart Day, the father of an elementary-age student in northwestern Pennsylvania. “And he doesn’t like it. He gets really stressed out about it.”

There are also concerns about a lack of research not paid for by the company behind i-Ready, Curriculum Associates, which counters the software has the backing of rigorous research.

The complaints about i-Ready speak to many broader grievances about ed tech. Parents, researchers, educators, and policymakers alike are worried about how much children are exposed to screens, and the effects of screen time on their academic achievement, mental health, and social skills.

Read the full story here.

America’s aging school infrastructure represents by one measure a $90 billion problem. States and local governments have struggled to pay for upgrades, leaving many children learning in substandard conditions. Should the federal government step in? One candidate for Congress (who lost his primary Tuesday) made the issue the centerpiece of his campaign. He hasn’t been the only person pushing big-dollar federal investments in school buildings recently. But so far they’ve failed to gain traction.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told lawmakers that states will be able to set their own rules for scholarship groups under the new federal school choice program. That’s one of the big questions hanging over the federal tax-credit scholarship program. It’s worth noting that McMahon’s comments don’t reflect how conservative school choice supporters hope the program will work. Ultimately, the Treasury Department and not McMahon will make this call.

The nation’s report card soon will provide more state-level data on science, civics, and high school seniors’ learning. The 74 reports that the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test that seemed endangered a year ago, is expanding. The test’s governing board hopes that more granular information about topics people care about can help tests beyond the core reading and math tests feel more relevant.

New research shows what happens when parents get accurate information about school performance. It can shape the decisions they make about where to enroll their children, but it makes a much larger difference if all the parents in a community get the same information. 

The charter network that perhaps more than any other has come to symbolize high expectations, high achievement, and strict discipline turns 20 this year. Success Academy began with a single school in Harlem in 2006 and now serves some 22,000 students in 59 schools. That makes it larger than many American school districts. 

Success students regularly post some of the highest test scores in the state in reading and math and boast 100% college acceptance rates, with many students from low-income backgrounds going to selective schools. 

But the school has also drawn fierce criticism for its tactics, including allegations that the school weeds out less-promising students. 

An anniversary video posted to the network’s Facebook page is equal turns celebratory and combative, highlighting both student achievement and political opposition. 

Two New York City students who attended Success Academy recently shared their experiences on the podcast P.S. Weekly, produced in partnership with Chalkbeat and The Bell. 

Jeremiah Dickerson recalled how proud he was to receive the school’s signature orange tie on the last day of kindergarten: “That was the prize for graduating to first grade. At five years old, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on mine. It felt like it had a magic power.”

But Jeremiah ended up suspended multiple times by the end of second grade. He describes himself as “overstimulated, overworked, exhausted,” and he would inevitably “crash out.” 

Jeremiah ended up leaving the school early. His friend Sasha Hartwell stayed much longer, all the way to her senior year of high school, but eventually put her foot down with her parents and said she needed a different environment.

Sasha credits Success with shaping her into the person she is today, but she found many of the common disciplinary practices and strict classroom management to be, well, a lot.

While Jeremiah and Sasha have complicated feelings about Success, they also appreciate why parents are drawn to these schools. 

Meanwhile, with growth opportunities in New York limited by a state charter cap, Moskowitz is expanding Success Academy in Florida’s more charter-friendly environment. Billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, is supporting the move with a $50 million gift.

That’s how much diesel fuel prices for school districts have risen since December as a result of the war with Iran. Reuters reports that school district bus operations consume more than 800 million gallons of diesel annually, while some school districts in Alaska rely on diesel just to keep the lights on. A third of school districts report diverting money from other needs to pay for rising fuel costs, according to a survey by the School Superintendents Association.

That’s Joanna Bache Tobin, a school board member in Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland. She’s talking about what’s increasingly become a challenge in kindergarten classrooms: toilet training. 

Seventy years ago, most kids got the hang of toilet training by around their second birthday. That’s not the case now, as the average age of a potty-trained child with typical development keeps creeping up. And that problem is creeping into classrooms as students show up in diapers.