Help the Children Now

Oregon Gov. Neil E. Goldschmidt last year went to Portland’s City Club and ticked off what the assembled business and civic leaders must do together to give children a healthy start in school. He expected a modest response. He got a standing ovation.

The people were ahead of him, he discovered. The people are ready to address children’s issues in the 1990s. And the proposals are ready before the U.S. Congress and the California Legislature. Small programs are even in place here and there across the country. What is needed now is leadership to secure the money, votes and commitment to duplicate those demonstrated successes.

One of the most comprehensive proposals comes from Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who chairs the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families. He and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) are co-sponsoring a measure that emphasizes helping children early in life. Miller can point to report after report to buttress his case. For example, he says, “the Committee for Economic Development, composed of the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, estimates that each year’s high school dropouts cost the country $240 billion in lost productivity and forgone taxes.”

Miller’s bill sets 1993 as a target to provide all impoverished pregnant women, their infants and children with health-care coverage under the Medicaid program. There would be a similar 1993 goal for complete coverage of those groups by the federal Women, Infant and Children nutrition program and for full immunization of all preschool children. Miller also wants appropriations increased for disabled preschool children and for ensuring an adequate vaccine supply.

His program is ambitious--and not as expensive as not acting. The first year of the four-year effort would cost $1.4 billion. In the long run, this investment in children’s futures will save billions more than it will cost.

Congress also must pass and pay for a child-care bill. Not a tax credit, as President Bush proposes, but the kind of bill that creates new child-care spaces, helps parents pay for decent care, requires that safety standards be set and helps improve the training of child-care workers. The Act for Better Child Care, sponsored by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), is such a bill.

There also is much that can be done in California, where one out of every nine American children lives. Leaders of a California advocacy group, Children Now, report that only a small fraction of needy children here receive health checkups, preschool education and other preventive measures. Not only must state government devote more of its resources to children, it must not cut valuable programs like the Office of Family Planning or community mental health services. More, not less, must be done to help prevent child abuse and supervise children who must be placed in foster care. None of these programs can be expanded unless the Gann spending limit that straitjackets the state is lifted.

Ultimately, the issues of income and housing for poor families must be squarely addressed as well. All these tasks are made difficult by the fact that neither the United States nor California has any coherent policy on what should be done for children. President Bush could provide leadership by reporting each year on the tasks that remain.

But the real work is done on the local level with state money. A few counties and private agencies may lead the way to better coordination. For example, Ventura County has established a network that coordinates mental health, social services, corrections and special education programs to help treat all of a child’s needs. Stuart House in Santa Monica, which helps abused children, brings together under one roof social workers, medical personnel and law enforcement agencies to reduce youngsters’ trauma. The state could profit by these examples of coordination. Citizens need to get far more involved as well, by helping their local programs or working as Children Now does to push for a stronger state commitment.

The people are indeed ahead of their government on this issue. The children, the greatest resource for the nation’s future, are ready, too. Where are the leaders?