PETER LAFFIN: How America’s literacy crisis will cripple our ability to combat China.

The past year alone has seen Chinese President Xi Jinping boldly advance Chinese international priorities, which suggests that he no longer fears the consequences of bucking the U.S.-led West. Among other things, he’s brokered a detente between ancient rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, entered the foray in Ukraine with deepening military ties to Russia, created distance between the U.S. and its European allies about Taiwan policy, and struck a unified pose with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who last week tweeted his intention for Brazil to work with China “to expand trade and balance world geopolitics” (emphasis mine).

Meanwhile, Americans appear uninterested in the implications of this international shift and consequently lack the urgency necessary to fend off the challenge. Headlines abound in the American press that must cause Xi to chuckle himself silly — especially reports that involve the ballooning failure of American education , particularly its inability to teach its students basic reading skills.

According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress , a jaw-dropping two-thirds of American fourth graders lack basic proficiency in reading. (To put this in perspective, imagine three American schoolchildren sitting beside one another in a classroom. Two of them can’t read.) In addition, a full 86% of 15-year-olds are unable to tell the difference between opinion and fact. [Emphasis added.]

We know how American public education declined to its dangerously sad condition but that emphasized part explains exactly why.