Despite graduating from high school with “honors” and being accepted into the University of Connecticut on a scholarship, 19-year-old government-school victim Aleysha Ortiz cannot read or write. At all. Literally. And she’s hardly alone. Now, with help from an attorney, Ortiz is suing the city and the school board. And the national media is paying attention.
Ortiz moved to Hartford, Connecticut, from Puerto Rico as a young child and entered the local government school in first grade. She spent a full 12 years there, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. But instead of teaching her literacy or writing, government school staff bullied and harassed her, according to the lawsuit alleging “negligence” and “infliction of emotional distress” extending through many years.
“My time in Hartford Public Schools was a time that I don’t wish upon anyone,” Ortiz told News 8 WTNH, one of the first outlets to pick up the story. “Every first day of school, I would tell the teacher I cannot read and write so please be patient for me, so everyone knew. I would cry knowing the people who had big titles knew this was happening, and no one stepped up to do something about it.”
Ortiz is hardly alone. Another lawsuit in Tennessee was filed by a victim who graduated from government school with a 3.4 GPA — and no ability to read his high-school diploma, as the ruling observed. Last month a federal appellate court sided with him. “William’s most salient ‘circumstance’ for our purposes was that — with proper instruction — he can learn to read,” the court ruled.
This is actually very common. There are hundreds of public-schools across America that do not have one single student who ranks even “proficient” in reading on the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress. Less than one in three students nationally are at or above proficiency in reading or math, NAEP data show. And among adults, federal data show about half are in the bottom two of five categories, meaning they cannot really read.
According to her lawsuit, Ortiz took a test in sixth grade that showed her reading ability below a first-grade level. But it was not until one month before graduating with honors that the school acknowledged Ortiz “required explicitly taught phonics” to be able to learn how to read, just as virtually every child everywhere who is learning a phonetic writing system.
Of course, experts have been sounding the alarm on the exact same reading quackery that handicapped Ortiz since it was first tried and exposed in the mid-1800s in Massachusetts under government-school pioneer Horace Mann. This writer and Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld wrote a book a decade ago documenting the whole history of this deliberate creation of reading disabilities titled Crimes of the Educators.
A number of specific officials are named in Ortiz’s complaint. One in particular, a “special education case manager” and teacher who was supposed to help Ortiz, instead allegedly would “yell at, belittle, and humiliate her in front of other students and teachers,” according to the complaint. “Ortiz would frequently run to other teachers and/or administrators in tears and emotional distress,” the suit added.
The case is attracting enormous public and media interest. First, local outlets picked it up. Then, the national news. The New York Post did a fairly significant story on the scandal. Even leftwing outlets that normally defend the government-education monopoly from criticism at all costs such as CNN have now jumped on the story, too.
Newsweek also highlighted the explosive scandal. “Ortiz’s lawsuit underscores broader concerns about systemic failures in public education, particularly in providing adequate support for students with learning disabilities,” wrote Associate Editor Ashley Parks. “The case has drawn attention to how academic achievement is measured and whether special education students are truly receiving the skills they need to succeed beyond high school.”
Colleges are now under the microscope, too. “Additionally, it raises questions about how colleges assess applicants, especially those facing severe academic challenges,” continued Parks in her Newsweek piece about the scandal, noting that Ortiz was admitted to a major government university and even received a scholarship despite being completely illiterate.
Lawmakers are expressing grave concerns, too. “The student was allegedly denied services — over 12 years — due to lack of funding and roadblocks to learning at many levels,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding and Sen. Eric Berthel, apparently oblivious to the massive tax funding for this fraud. “We continue to seek accountability as to how this student was illiterate when she graduated and how the system failed her year after year.”
The new lawsuit in Connecticut comes as purveyors of quackery posing as “reading” and “literacy” instruction are facing similar legal troubles in Massachusetts. As documented by The Newman Report in December, a public-interest law firm is suing various institutions, publishers, and individuals involved in crippling generations of American students with the same discredited teaching methods.
The government school district is not commenting on the case, citing the ongoing litigation. Its attorneys requested more time to file a response and now have until March 9 to answer the complaint. If Ortiz succeeds, it could open the floodgates as millions of government-school victims with whole word-induced dyslexia file suit.
Why parents continue to let their children suffer in government “schools” that fail to teach even the most basic of the basics remains a mystery. However, forcing taxpayers to hand over even more money to the tens of millions of victims will do nothing to remedy this horrific, systemic problem. Nothing short of radical change will suffice to address this national catastrophe.
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My mother worked with the Texas Rangers tracking down child predators. She had this one case where they found a 10 year old boy in a closet, in his own feces, being fed cardboard. He had spent most of his life there. He couldn’t really talk, just grunt and cry and stuff. That poor soul never knew what he was supposed to have, what was his by right of God and man. He had no idea what steak tasted like, or a piece of chocolate. He had no experience of a loving parent picking him up when he fell down, or reading him a bedtime story.
I think about that boy, and the children in our woke public schools who don’t know any better. People under 30 who have no idea what has just recently been lost, what’s theirs by right. I watch them be confused about their gender, causing them to mutilate their own genitals. They think it’s normal for men to play sports against the girls, or use their restrooms. They think it’s normal to have their country flooded with immigrants, or that they somehow deserve it.
They don’t really know what’s going on. Because they’re being psychologically attacked by some very creepy people. The very last people in the universe who should have any power at all are trying to take total and absolute control of them. They have no idea how truly dangerous this situation is that they are in.
People, you have to do your part. You have to kick in the door and rescue the children from the closets. Give them steak, set them free. It’s the American and Christian thing to do.
Amen!! Well said. Agree 100%
Hey, Sen. Chris Murphy, call your office and pay attention to the fact your states allow students to graduate from high school and get accepted at U of Conn without being able to read and write. You’re not getting anything done in your day job.
if they fix it then there’s no justification for more money… duh!
Who should be getting sued in this lawsuit this girl filing is not the school district. It should be the administrators and every teacher whose class that girl attended. Why should the taxpayers be on the hook for this again? The taxpayers did their jobs. The school employees did not.
If you can’t read and write by the time you’re in the 12th grade that’s on you. I goofed off all through high school but I read a lot of books from the time I started elementary school through high school and still read a lot today. Even though I goofed off, English was my best subject. And I’m no genius.
CLEAR evidence that the Federal Department of Education (DOE), DOESN”T. And has not since it was created. Add to that, the wokeness and weaponization of education against parental rights, and this is the result.
There NEEDS to be a purge of Biblical scale of the educators in the USA. Those being fired losing their pensions for their failures.
Heck, if a school near me needs a math teacher, who can and will teach, hire me and I will show the failures how it is done by a norma;;y educated High school graduate from 50 years ago.
Interesting how Newsweek tries to frame the girl as special needs, rather than as one a who knows how many cases of institutional failure. It’s a little disgusting and a sleight of hand to cover for the system.
I had phonics in grade school decades ago when it was still a normal part of the curriculum. Nevertheless, people obviously learn, over time, to recognize words on sight. Learning to do this directly without phonics is likely more difficult, but it is certainly not impossible; children learning languages like Chinese have to do it (Chinese does not have an alphabet), yet their literacy rate is impressive.
The fact that this is possible suggests that the problem is bigger than simply failing to teach phonics in primary school. It means that certain people in our educational system are just not doing their jobs–they are not confirming the student is performing at grade level before promoting them, and they are not taking the actions needed to get the student back on track. Back when I was in school, students got held back if their progress wasn’t satisfactory.
Keep or get your children out now. Homeschool them. Focus on the 3 Rs, some science, some history, and enjoying one another. And stay far away from any tax-funded system (e.g., school vouchers, tax-funded ESAs, “school choice” programs). Stay free and help you children thrive. See homeschool research at http://www.nheri.org
A wake-up call to everyone on the reality of the “teachers” in today’s schools. If they aren’t pedophiles, they are political activists, or trans activists and very few still care about actual education.
Shut down the government propaganda indoctrination “schools”!
Homeschooling is the best option for families that prioritize their children. Even a hillbilly plumber such as myself with no educational degree can teach a child to read in less than 12 years…just sayin
Make education great again!
No input from mommy or daddy, why is that??????
How is this even possible? Stories like this completly baffle me: I taught myself to read when I was two years old; from the newspaper my parents told me. I had an adult library ticket when I was about eight. If this girl had been in my class, I’d have taken the task on myself. Denying people reading is simply criminal and should be a capital offence. End of.
She should sue her parents, she should sue her guidance counselor, she should sue the admissions office at U. Conn. What were ACT & SAT scores. It seems no one did their job. She had to know of these shortcomings, why did she not address these issues.