A high school teacher in Houston, Texas, became emotional during class when he realized many of his senior students had significant difficulties with reading and writing. Darius Williams, who teaches at Wheatley High School in the Houston Independent School District, shared his distress in a social media video.
Williams stated that early in the second week of the school year, he assigned a writing exercise that involved reading two paragraphs and completing a partially finished sentence. He was taken aback when students, aged 17 and 18, were unable to fill in the few missing words. "I gave them the answers before we even had the problem and they couldn’t do it," Williams said in the video, his voice breaking. "I simply don’t know where the problem is."
He described the situation as "only day two" of school and expressed frustration that he had seniors who "simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write." Williams noted that while his students could articulate ideas and defend their reasoning verbally, they struggled to translate those skills into written text.
The teacher, who is part of the New Education System (NES) Career and Technical Education (CTE) program, later addressed criticism regarding his qualifications. He shared that he holds a second bachelor's degree from Berklee College of Music and is pursuing a master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction at the American College of Education. Williams also displayed numerous certifications from the state of Texas and the Texas Education Agency, asserting his readiness to teach.
This incident comes amid broader concerns about student literacy. Preliminary results from the state Education Department indicate that a majority of New York City students in grades three through five failed their English Language Arts tests for the 2025-2026 academic year. Specifically, 57% of third graders, 52% of fourth graders, and 57% of fifth graders received failing marks. Across grades four through eight, only 48% of students were deemed proficient in ELA, a 5% decrease from the previous year.