By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

Retired Adm. William McRaven, a former US Navy SEAL commander and head of US Special Operations Command, who was chancellor of the University of Texas System had been consistently asked what is America’s greatest national security threat?

His answer had surprised many of those who asked when he stated, “America’s K-12 education system.”

McRaven followed up by commenting that “Unless we are giving opportunity and a quality education to the young men and women in the United States, then we won’t have the right people to be able to make the right decisions about our national security.”

As of right now the United States spends roughly around $760 billion on K-12 education, but the question remains what does the nation get for its expenditures?

For all of its expenditure on education, prior to the coronavirus pandemic American school children reading and math scores dropped, and on The Programme for International Student Assessment, is an international assessment administered every three years that measures what 15-year-old students have learned in math, reading and science. The exam was developed by the OECD, an intergovernmental organization made up of 37 mostly industrialized countries. In 2018, 79 countries administered the PISA exam to more than 600,000 students in public and private schools.

With 64 countries who administered the test in both 2015 and 2018, U.S. students ranked 30th in math, up from 35th in 2015, and eighth in reading, up from 15th in 2015. In science, U.S. students ranked 11th, up from 17th in 2015.

With all the expenditures on education, shouldn’t the U.S. be at least in the top five? Many would counter that additional resources need to be allocated, but there is no measurable calculation that more expenditures would improve educational outcomes.

All of this was before the educational shutdown of the nation’s educational system from the coronavirus, one can only imagine what is the education achievement compared to the rest of our industrial competitors, especially that of China and Europe?

Without a viable educational system, the United States would fall behind in the next new technology such as 5-G, would not be able to innovate in key areas thus dependent on others and would face domination by China who is intent on upending the global economic system in favor of Beijing.

The old adage for anyone to escape the perpetual clutches of poverty, one needs a job, but the real moniker should be that to really escape poverty one needs a solid education, unfortunately many children across America are trapped in a dysfunctional governmental educational system.

The coronavirus has impacted America in many fundamentally different ways, but COVID-19 exposed the country’s bankrupt government educational system, which truly illuminates how our government has failed this country, and has placed America’s national security in jeopardy.

No one is impacted by this national security crisis more than the African American and Hispanic communities whose only option is to send their children to the dysfunctional government run educational school system.

The Democratic Party and the Biden administration preach religiously about how they are concerned for people of color but far too often many black and Hispanic children are trapped at the bottom of the socioeconomic realm devoid of any educational advancement. Education has always been and will be the surest way to escape poverty.

Since the impact of the coronavirus on education, the federal government has allocated federal stimulus to the tune of close to $300 billion to U.S. schools, how has this impacted American schools; especially those in the Black and Hispanic communities.

We don’t have the latest data on academic achievement, but before the pandemic America spent close to $800 billion annually on education from the federal, state and local level, but what does the nation get in return? Before the pandemic severely impacted U.S. education, 70% of black and Hispanic children across the U.S. are deficient in math and English at grade level.  What’s it like now?

In 2015, the average reading score for white students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 4th and 8th grade exam was 26 points higher than for black students. Similar gaps are apparent in math. The 12th grade assessment also showed alarming disparities as well, with only seven percent of black students performing at or above proficient on the math exam in 2015, compared to 32 percent white students. This dismal educational statistic hasn’t changed in the years since this report was released.

Before the coronavirus pandemic impacted the nation’s schools, school districts across America during the 2018-19 school years endured numerous educational workers’ strikes centering on increased pay and other benefits. What wasn’t mentioned by the media that these school districts needed increase funding to cover the ever-growing bloated unfunded health and pension obligations?

As the economies of the states were re-opening, teachers unions vigorously opposed school reopening’s until their demands were met. In California, the unions and Democrats were doing everything they can to eliminate charter schools so that more money is redirected back to public schools without any accountability of how that revenue is spent or the outcome on educational results.

During the summer of Los Angeles and Chicago teacher’s union issued a progressive manifesto of demands to be met before agreeing to school re-openings. The demands by the teachers unions included, Medicare for all, defund the police, and billions of extra revenues from the federal government.

Of all the rhetoric of racial, economic, and educational justice many of the cities such as       St. Louis, Louisville, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia all of them are governed by liberal Democrats.  If one does any kind cursory research you would find out that many of these cities haven’t had a Republican mayor in well over sixty some years, with some dating back to the late 1800’s.

Why the disparity in educational achievement?

The esteemed African-American academic Walter Williams a Professor of Economics at George Mason University commented in a recent article that “Many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.” For example, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Atlanta fit this narrative.

Atlanta hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1879.  With this singular domination of local governance by the Democratic Party, the Georgia Milestones test assessment of English Language Arts finds students’ proficiency rate under 40%. The stunning gap between black and white students is almost 60 percent. Eighty percent of white students in APS are proficient and above; the number is 25.3 percent for black students—and the district is majority black.

The city of Chicago which has been in the news lately hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931.  According to Illinois Policy Think Tank in 2015 around 70% of all black and Hispanic children in the Chicago Unified School system are not proficient to grade level in math and English, and this hasn’t changed in the years since.

Why hasn’t Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot been asked about this by the media?

The Chicago Unified School District is a fiscal disaster facing an $8.4 billion debt, considering over 70% of the children who attend Chicago schools are black and Hispanic children thus impacting the dismal educational achievement gap.

This doesn’t end here, in September 2019, the U.S. Department of Education (Department), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a disturbing report highlighting that close to 500 young girls over a ten year period were sexually assaulted, abused and harassed inside the Chicago Unified School District.  Many of the victims of alleged abuses were black and Hispanic children. Where was the outrage? Where was the media coverage? How come Democratic leaders aren’t asked about any of this when they have solidly controlled city governance for decades?

Just this year alone Camie Pratt, CPS’ Chief Title IX Officer, stated at a monthly school board meeting in February 2020 that there has been a 29% increase in reported sexual misconduct cases this year compared to last. What happened to the civil rights of these students? Why has this continued?

Continuing with the deplorable educational system found in America’s major cities, Williams comments that “In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test. That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.”

In California, the nation’s largest and most populous state, the educational achievement gap for black and Hispanic students is that 70% cannot read nor do math to grade level despite spending billions over the past few years.

Even in Los Angles the nation’s second largest school district, only 21% of African American students who graduated in 2018 were considered prepared for college or careers, compared to 52 percent of white students and 74 percent of Asian students.

The Reason Foundation in 2018 calculated that LA Unified School District is anywhere between $8-13 billion in debt and it’s even worse now since the impact of the coronavirus on districts fiancés.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that LAUSD expects to spend $1.7 billion annually toward pensions and health care during the 2020-21 school year, an increase of nearly $400 million from 2016-17. Nearly a quarter of the revenues from per-pupil funding would not reach students at all.

The Seattle city government routinely speaks about racial justice but for those seeking racial equality why have city leaders never been asked why only 28% of black children can read to grade level. This coming from a heavily Democratic city with the last Republican to hold the mayor’s office was 1969.

The State of Washington mirrors the educational achievement gap of Seattle with black and Hispanic children scoring around 30% who can do math or read to grade level, an extremely dismal distinction, considering all the coverage on the protests, nothing on this.

Why hasn’t the Democratic governor Jay Inslee been asked about this? Considering the last Republican governor was thirty-five years ago in 1985.  Maybe we should be asking the mayor and governor these questions?

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reported that only 30% of African-American and Hispanic students in the state of Minnesota were proficient at grade level in math and English.

In the financial capital of the world, New York City this also fits a similar pattern with only 30% of black and Hispanic children able to do math or English to grade level far below their white or Asian peers.

At the beginning of the first day of the 2019-20 school year, Jason Riley a Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute Fellow wrote that with the majority of students returning, the majority of them can’t do basic reading or math, according to state standardized test results released last week. And the numbers get even more depressing when broken down by race and ethnicity. Black and Hispanic students make up 67% of the system, while whites and Asians are about 15% and 16%, respectively. Only 28% of black students passed the math exam, versus 33% of Hispanics, 67% of whites and 74% of Asians. On the English exam, the passage rates were 68% for Asians, 67% for whites, 37% for Hispanics and 35% for blacks.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio decided to end the Gifted and Talented Program, because not enough Black and Hispanic were admitted to the programs, but instead of finding out why they can’t pass the examination, maybe if they did they would find out these children attend the failing New York City school system.

Just this year Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown law that suspends a requirement for a basic-skills test in math, reading and writing to graduate high school as it impacts children of color, instead of focusing how children of color are educated or giving these families a choice of sending their child to a better school.

It’s interesting that those who oppose charter schools opt to send their children to a private school and they include many stanch proponents of public schools such as former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

Far too often educational advocates who state the need for additional revenue but examples in California and Baltimore show otherwise as more spending didn’t always equate to better educational results.

America’s national security is unnoticed, but those advocating the loudest about racial inequality are themselves perpetrating this injustice.  One only has to remember the quote from Arthur Fletcher former head of the United Negro College fund, when he coined the phrase, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Right now, it’s being wasted by those who advocate the loudest for racial justice! If America doesn’t address the glaring national security deficit the only winner will be China!