Graduated with honors—and can’t read a word
American Thinker | 06/26/25 | Maureen Steele

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. 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.