Can TSA screeners read?

Returning home from my trip to Seattle I had an experience that underlines the inadequacy of the current screening methods. Two people arrived at the same seat on the same plane at the same time. The flight attendant took their boarding passes and immediately announced that they both had the same name and that was the reason for the confusion. But they didn't have the same name, the two people had just been issued identical boarding passes. Even though one of the passengers names differed from their boarding pass they moved through the TSA security line without issue.

I asked the flight attendant how that could of happened. The flight attendant shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Wanting to get home without having to deplane and re-pass security I didn't mention it further, but it did worry me. How could someone possibly look at a name on a boarding pass and a name on a license and consider them to be the same? They weren't even close to matching. The woman who checked my identification barely spoke English, I wondered whether she may have had a problem reading...

I couldn't find much on TSA job requirements but I'm hoping a lot of the testing is in written English. Maybe I'm wrong and the TSA allows employees to be tested in their language of choice, then tested on oral English communication skills. I'd be interested to know whether anyone could find more on this.