Too many people look at Deaf students and assume we’re not smart. They see gaps in our reading levels, test scores, or graduation rates and jump to the wrong conclusion: that Deafness equals deficiency. But they don’t see the why. They don’t see the years we spent fighting just to access basic education. They don’t see the barriers built around us — invisible to hearing people but suffocatingly real to us. They don’t see that while hearing kids were learning, many of us were trying to survive. Let’s be clear from the start: Deaf people are not broken. The education system is. A System Built Without Us Education in most…