Recent statistics that the education system may be producing functionally illiterate graduates are very concerning. Researchers interested in investigating whether the high school education system is producing illiterate graduates investigate the question by exploring three types of illiteracy; functional, cultural and moral literacy. The most disturbing news is that the level of functional literacy among high school graduates is lacking. Functional literacy “is the inability to read or write well enough to carry out daily activities in modern society” (Sweet Par. 2). According to Lederman, 14% of American adults are “functionally illiterate.” Furthermore, 29% of American adults have a literacy level between a fifth and seventh grade level, while 25% of high school graduates only have an eighth grade level or lower (Lederman par.2-4 ). From the above information, it is unfortunate that a huge number of students successfully graduate from high school, regardless of the alarming level of functional illiteracy. Fundamentally, something needs to be done to reduce the high number of illiterates among high school graduates by considering the factors behind the fact that some high school students graduate without adequate reading skills. Reading John Corcoran's book “The Teacher Who Couldn't Read” shows that there is hope for improving the situation, but the key step is to identify the reasons and ways in which functionally illiterate students are allowed to advance to the grade level. next. This research paper discusses three factors: social promotion, the use of movies instead of books, and cheating in academic tasks. First, the social promotion was... in the middle of the paper... unread. This implies that despite having gone through the education system, these graduates lack the ability to perform advanced reading and writing tasks, such as filling out a job application and tax form. Reasons identified in this research paper include practicing social promotion, using too many film assignments, and cheating on tests and academic assignments. Obviously, the high level of functional illiteracy among high school graduates is alarming and requires immediate intervention to prevent the statistics from rising to uncontrolled levels. A literate society is a successful society, so it is high time that school administrators and other stakeholders come up with effective measures to prevent cheating, which has been identified as the worst factor that is promoting the level of functional illiteracy among the high school graduates..