Hartford Public High School grad can't read

Specifically, passing the buck onto someone else and maintaining plausible deniability.

For example, if the Feds wanted to ensure this student received all the therapy and medicine and one to one education or whatever their legally mandated Individual Education Plan called for, then the Feds should have paid for all of it.

Testing regimes focused on current-grade material and tied to funding make it hard to find support to properly address this. A 5th grade student might best be served by ignoring all 5th grade math and learning 2nd and 3rd grade math instead (something like this is actually a pretty common situation) but they’ll do worse on the standardized test than if the same time had been spent teaching them enough of the 5th grade material to pattern-recognize their way to a better-than-chance score. A great teacher who feels like working extra-hard for zero extra pay and no meaningful improvement in test scores can fill in some of the gaps while still doing what admin wants, but even that’s not ideal.

But can't read or do any math beyond addition? What?

His experience has been that, for a large fraction of his students, something has gone seriously off the rails before the 7th grade.

Our kids strengthened/grew their reading skills in school, but we taught them to read before kindergarten.

Ortiz was diagnosed with a speech impediment and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in early childhood and has been classified as a student with a disability for “as long as I can remember,” she said.