The assignment, he explained, was hardly an advanced writing exercise. Students were asked to read two paragraphs and produce a single complete sentence. The teacher said he provided sentence stems and even demonstrated how the sentence could be completed before asking students to try it themselves.
“We had two paragraphs to read, one sentence, complete, to write. I gave them the sentence stems. I basically completed the sentence for them in the model.”
Still, many students reportedly could not finish the task.
“These are 17 and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words.”
The teacher said he attempted to remove virtually every obstacle that could have prevented students from succeeding. The class was given a scenario, worked through an annotation exercise together and was provided with answers before being expected to respond independently.
“I gave them the scenario. We annotated together. I gave them the answers before we even had the problem.”
“And they couldn’t do it.”
The experience appeared to leave the teacher searching for an explanation.
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know where the problem is.”
What concerned him most was that this was not a problem appearing after weeks or months of observation. It was happening almost immediately.
“This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write.”
Yet the teacher made an important distinction. He said some of the students clearly possess the ability to reason and explain their positions verbally. The difficulty comes when they are asked to transfer that reasoning onto paper and connect it to a written passage.
“They could reason. They have the ability to defend their reasoning if it’s talking to their homeboy, but applying that to a written text, two paragraphs, they couldn’t do it.”
He also expressed particular concern for students from communities that could face serious consequences if they graduate without the literacy skills necessary for college, employment and everyday life.
“Our young Black men, our young brown men, our young Black girls, and our young brown girls. Oh God.”
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The teacher’s account raises a larger question: How did students reach their final years of high school without mastering fundamental reading and writing skills?
That question inevitably turns attention toward the broader education establishment, including powerful teachers’ unions.
One prominent target is American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Critics of the union have questioned whether organized labor is putting enough attention and resources toward classroom performance while also investing heavily in political advocacy and other projects.
A report from the Freedom Foundation, as cited by the New York Post, examined spending associated with Weingarten’s book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy. The report alleged that individuals involved with the project collectively received more than $1.4 million from the union through various arrangements.
According to the Post’s account of the Freedom Foundation report, the group included an attorney whose law firm received approximately $977,000 for work for the AFT, despite the attorney reportedly working on the book pro bono. The report also identified a supposed ghostwriter who allegedly received more than $400,000 overall from the union.
The union reportedly spent an additional $11,000-plus on two individuals described as fact-checkers who also apparently handled photography for the project. The publisher promoted the book as a “manifesto for our time.”
The spending allegations and the teacher’s classroom experience are separate issues, but they point toward the same uncomfortable question: Are America’s education leaders focusing enough attention on the basic skills students need before they leave the classroom?
A diploma may mark the end of high school, but it cannot guarantee that a graduate can read critically, construct an argument or write a coherent sentence.
For teachers confronting those deficiencies firsthand, the consequences are not theoretical.
They are sitting in the classroom.
And, according to this teacher, some of them are only months away from walking across a graduation stage.
