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Snoozing through a national threat December 29, 2011

A dangerous enemy threatens America. I'm not talking about al-Qaida, but another menace equally as dangerous - the utter failure to educate today's kids, tomorrow's adults.

The 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, declares that large chunks of american students are not getting the basic education they'll need to succeed.

85 percent of black eighth-graders are not proficient at reading and 87 percent are not proficient at math. And it's not just minorities - more than half of white eighth-graders are not proficient in math or reading. Overall, almost two-thirds of the nation's eighth-graders are not proficient in either math or reading.

If you are not terrified that 9 out of 10 black kids and two-thirds of all kids are not proficient in basic eighth-grade subjects, you're just not paying attention. How will these students lead America 25 years from now? How will they even hold down a job? For all the problems that our cities and country are enduring now and will face in the future, none threatens national security more than an entire generation of uneducated people.