How did Wayne Knowland graduate from a Bronx high school last June, the New York Post asks, when he can’t even read his diploma?
In fact, the charismatic 18-year-old can’t read street signs, a paragraph in a newspaper or a job application — despite educators at Fannie Lou Hamer HS sending him on his way with a handshake and a sheepskin. Wayne graduated just three weeks after the school gave him an evaluation on June 6 that determined he was reading at a second-grade level.
Knowland was required to pass three tests — called reading, writing and math RCTs — in order to graduate with a standard high-school diploma. New York Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is skeptical that a student reading at a second-grade level could pass the RCTs without help. “It is not plausible to me. It doesn’t make sense,” she told The Post.
Sure doesn’t.
“Wayne says it was only because he had questions read to him on his fifth stab at the reading test — in apparent violation of testing rules — that he passed that exam,” writes the Post’s Yoav Gonen.
This reminds me of a story that broke a year or two ago, about the man who was a functioning illiterate and went on to become a teacher!