Graduated with honors—and can’t read a word

What do you call a nation where a high school student can graduate with honors—yet cannot read or write?

You call it America in 2025.

This week, we learned about Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old who graduated from Hartford Public High School in Connecticut with academic distinction—despite being illiterate. She is now suing the school district, alleging negligence, emotional distress, and a complete abdication of duty by the educators and administrators who were supposed to serve her. Her story, reported by CNN, is both infuriating and emblematic of a national crisis that’s been engineered from top down.

Aleysha’s early assessments showed severe learning challenges. Her reading level remained at kindergarten or first-grade level well into middle and high school. She was only diagnosed with dyslexia and other learning disabilities after graduation. Think about that: they handed her a diploma while she couldn’t read it. And the kicker? She graduated with honors—a participation trophy for surviving 13 years in an educational meat grinder that masquerades as a public service.

This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s the new normal. And while Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the nation—the seat of Ivy League royalty like Yale University—its inner-city public schools are failing catastrophically. If it’s happening in the land of bluebloods and billion-dollar endowments, what hope do kids in Mississippi or the South Side of Chicago have?

The state of Oregon just made matters worse by permanently removing requirements for high school students to demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing, or math in order to graduate (source). Yes, you read that right. The bar isn’t being lowered—it’s being buried. And it’s not about equity. It’s about ensuring a compliant, unskilled, unthinking generation that will never challenge authority, never run a business, never read the Constitution, and never threaten the ruling class.

Aleysha’s early assessments showed severe learning challenges.

If she had an IEP (Individualized Education Program) she at least has standing to sue. An IEP gives her legal rights that ordinary students do not have. I suspect that she did have an IEP, thus the high school let her graduate with honors. She likely got straight A s.

“After all, she’s mentally handicapped, she can’t be expected to be able to read.” The school’s argument will be, we satisfied the conditions of her IEP.

If you are not in the world of pubic education, you have no idea of how crazy some of the rules imposed on schools are, especially in regards to IEPs and the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).

> What is the teachers’ union position on this? <

I’m a retired city public school teacher, as I mentioned in my post #10.

I can’t answer for every union, but will answer for mine. As I noted earlier, things changed around the year 2000. A new generation of administrators came in. And so did a new generation of union leaders. Both groups were “woke” beyond belief. And my union became complicit in the grade inflation.

By that, I mean the union would not defend a teacher who was being fired for being too strict a grader.

And the union would not defend a teacher who was being fired for adjusting the curriculum to suit individual class needs. This is particularly egregious.

In the old days, a teacher could add or subtract material based on the class. Here’s an example. If a chemistry class was weak in algebra, the chemistry teacher would add some basic (and needed) algebra instruction.

That is now forbidden. Follow the rigid district-wide chemistry lesson plans word for word, or be fired. The charge: insubordination.

(Sorry for the rant.)

Same type of lawsuit was successfully launched against the LAUSD in California in the 90s - by a student who flunked 10th grade twice and was going to be held back for a third year:

“High school officials refused to heed pleas by her mother, Eliza Thompson, that the girl be placed in a special education program.

Subsequent testing arranged by lawyers showed that Smith’s reading and math skills were at second- and third-grade levels and that she could not interpret numbers well enough even to tell time.”

There was a Consent Decree signed by a judge overhauling the entire program at a cost of millions of dollars. Special Ed teachers quit b/c the paperwork became overwhelming, they were afraid of being sued for missing the smallest detail.

My take on it..
(as merely an obeserver).

Standardized tests are RACIST.

Reading is Racist.

Math is RACIST.

School choice is RACIST.

So, IMO public schools are little more than Gov teachers’ Union make work projects and post infant day care holding facilities.

> it sounds like AI could replace teachers if teachers are not allowed to have any discretion <

I think things will move in that direction.

However… I was retired when Covid hit. The schools went on lockdown, and students were given laptops to do remote learning at home. A good part of it was AI learning.

Teachers who were still working then told me it was a disaster. The computer programs didn’t engage the kids. Many of them stopped logging in.

Remember, I’m talking about city kids here. The results might be far different in the suburbs due to more parental involvement.

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