In 2024, Aleysha Ortiz, a top-ranking Hartford Public School student in Connecticut, sued the Hartford Board of Education alleging that staff bullying and harassment led to her inability to learn how to read or write.
According to her lawyer, Anthony Spinella, Ortiz is seeking $3 million in damages. The lawsuit alleges negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. In August 2025, a Connecticut Supreme Court Justice called for the dismissal of the case.
In Campus Reform, Jessica Hooten Wilson, a Pepperdine University professor, was quoted as saying, “If students cannot read well, it is our fault. We do not do students any favors by lowering our standards. Instead, we must be committed to walking beside students as they overcome greater hurdles to achieve what many adults were once educated to do – read great books.”
“Fewer students leaving high school are meeting all four college readiness benchmarks [on ACT tests],” Janet Godwin, former CEO of the ACT, told Education Week. “Just 21% of high school seniors are meeting all of these benchmarks; 43% of students meet none of them. Our research suggests that students meeting so few of these benchmarks are not going to perform as well in their credit-bearing freshman classes.”
Reasons attributed to the issue are decreased SAT and ACT standards, lax K-12 schools not educating students properly, and increased use of artificial intelligence. Once these students are accepted into colleges, the responsibility then falls on the schools to offer tutoring, mentoring, and possibly hiring more staff and faculty to get students to where they can handle a college workload.
In a study published by Elon University, college faculty agree that:
- 63% said their schools’ graduates in spring 2025 were not very or not at all prepared to use GenAI in the world of work, compared with 37% who felt the graduates were very or somewhat prepared.
- GenAI’s impact will be to increase students’ overreliance on these artificial intelligence tools, including 75% who said the tools will have a lot of impact.
- 48% said their students’ research has gotten worse because of GenAI, compared with 20% who said they believe it has gotten better.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a study of 3,009 students proving, what they call, an urgent need for curriculum reform. The study showed that 37% of students know that the Legislative branch of the government has the power to declare war and only 39% of students know that senators serve for six years and representatives serve for two years in the U.S. Congress.
Long-term effects of this issue fall on the future of the workforce and an impact on the nation’s economy and important factors such as job comprehension, voting and the future of the nation’s political status. Their conclusion is, “There is only one realistic solution to this crisis: require students to take well-designed courses in U.S. history and government at every college and university.”
