Military children matter.

And school officials better start understanding this fact.

That's the message sent by a recent study conducted by the Army's top officials. In 2013, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno launched an evaluation of local schools that hosted large numbers of military children. He was looking for schools that were not meeting baseline education standards.

An additional independent study confirmed what most military families know - many schools outside of major Army bases stink.

Our children have attended half a dozen schools during our moves. A few were good. Most, were awful.

When I met with a principal at one school principal in North Carolina outside of Fort Bragg to discuss a disturbing situation in my child's classroom the principal said, you will be gone in two years anyway. It doesn't really matter.

It doesn't really matter.

A school principal said this about my military child.

Schools see us as expendable. As students who really have no place in their school, who are just hanging out until the Army sends them elsewhere.

That is disgusting.

Especially since these school receive money from the U.S. Department of Education through the Impact Aid program which attempts to fill the gap between the number of students brought into a district via military orders and the property taxes those families are not paying because they live on base.

I know the Impact Aid program isn't a windfall but these students are part of the community. They are part of this school. For their time there, they see this as home.

And as these students struggle to adjust and deal with parents who are deployed or injured, the center of their universe, their school, has told them that they simply don't care.

And so far, there has been absolutely no repercussion for school systems who treat military children as less than equal.

Hopefully, that will change. Military budgets are dwindling. Less is being spent on programs for military families. Even the Army wants to make sure it is getting the most bang for its buck.

So as military leaders are considering what bases to close and re-align, the attitude and performance of the local school system may play an important part.

Both top defense officials and writers of the study suggest that the military will consider poor performing school systems to be part of the catalyst in closing a military base.

And what happens when you close a military base? Civilian jobs disappear, by the hundreds, sometimes thousands, and the community looses hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The thought that a bad school system could be blamed for the crushing economic blow to its community makes me giddy.

Quite frankly, these school systems that see military children as a burden to be ignored until they are moved on do not deserve to be part of a military community. Military families need communities that support them and see them as part of their hometown for as long as they are lucky enough to live there.

I know that most military members try their best to make each duty station feel like home and be part of the community. Often, when a family makes a PCS move, a tiny hole is left behind in the community, where they volunteered, made friends and were part of what made that town great.

It is only fitting that the worst school systems who are tasked with caring for our military children, and refuse to do so, should not only loose every single military child and every military dollar that comes with them, but should also shoulder the blame for the staggering economic downfall their town will suffer as a result.

I implore military leaders to follow through and put the education of our military children at the top of their priority list. Make our civilian school systems understand that military children don't need a babysitter, they deserve a quality education too. And if they are not interested in providing it, the military will move to a community that will.