Fantasia Barrino Reveals She's Illiterate
NEW YORK - "American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino reveals in her memoirs that she is functionally illiterate and had to fake her way through some scripted portions the televised talent show, which she won in 2004.
"You're illiterate to just about everything. You don't want to misspell," Fantasia told ABC's "20/20." "So that, for me, kept me in a box and I didn't, wouldn't come out."
The 21-year-old R&B singer says she's signed record deals and contracts that she didn't read and couldn't understand. But the hardest part, she said, is not being able to read to Zion, her 4-year-old daughter.
"That hurts really bad," she said, adding that she is now learning to read with tutors.
In her memoir, "Life is Not a Fairy Tale," which she dictated to a freelance writer, Fantasia also said she was **** in the ninth grade by a classmate. She says the boy was disciplined, but she blamed herself for the attack.
She dropped out of high school that year and became an **** mother at 17.
the education system in the inner city particularly extremely poor areas are just as bad as the living conditions
u got people who can't read graduating
which is why there is more emphasis put on standardized testing
not to say that i'm in favor of standardized testing because i'm not
but damn right the education system needs major work