She Graduated With Honors But She Can’t Read

Aleysha Ortiz graduated from Hartford Public Schools last year. She received honors at graduation. She is, by her own admission, illiterate. She cannot read or write a single sentence.

In early education, teachers told her to “stay in a corner and sleep” or “draw pictures for them.” In high school, she relied on speech-to-text programs for every assignment. Teachers knew. Administrators knew. Nobody did anything. Now she’s a freshman at UConn studying public policy — and she still can’t read the textbooks.

She’s suing the Hartford Board of Education for negligence. Not fraud. Negligence. The system didn’t actively harm her. It just didn’t care enough to teach her.

Why Education Bureaucrats Love ‘Test-Optional’

I sometimes wonder about the fervor education bureaucrats have for making standardized testing optional. Then I hear stories like Aleysha’s and know exactly why they do it. Tests reveal the rot.

San Francisco paid 6-figures to education school bureaurcrats pushing “Grading for Equity” — homework doesn’t count, unlimited test retakes, lateness and absence don’t affect grades. A score of 80 can earn an A. The game is to keep grades up while learning collapses. Rubber stamp F’s into C’s, C’s into B’s, B’s into A’s.

And once you’re through the gate? Harvard doesn’t even offer remedial writing courses. There’s nowhere to catch up. The students who were passed through without learning are stranded.

Mississippi Proved Standards Work

Archived tweet

We need to do the Mississippi reading gate for all the things. There is a breakdown in education and Mississippi learned there are real benefits to holding real standards instead of rubber stamping F’s into C’s, C’s into B’s and B’s into A’s https://t.co/4Zzx2dsqdP https://t.co/VMMaFW8j1Z

Garry Tan @garrytan January 31, 2026

Mississippi is the only state in America to improve reading scores for its bottom 10% of students over the last decade. Every other state declined. Forty states saw declines of 10 points or more. Delaware and Maryland dropped 30+ points.

Mississippi went from 49th in reading to the top after implementing the 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act. The core mechanism: a third grade reading gate. If you can’t read at grade level by third grade, you repeat until you can.

The pass rate is 85%. The retention rate is just 6%. The threat of retention changed adult behavior. Teachers actually teach. Parents get notified when kids fall behind. Schools create individual reading plans. And kids actually learn.

Mississippi’s Black students now rank third nationally. Its low-income kids outperform those in every other state. The poorest state in the country, with the lowest education spending, achieved what wealthy states couldn’t — because it held real standards.

We need to do the Mississippi reading gate for all the things. Not just literacy. Math. Science. Every subject where we’re currently rubber-stamping failure.

California governor’s office candidate Matt Mahan told me about the Third Grade Reading Gate when I first met him last year. It’s how I knew he was legit and focused on the right things. The solution exists. One state proved it works. Now we just have to stop lying to kids and start teaching them.

Read the full story on the Mississippi miracle.