Panel Tells of Children’s Poverty, Neglect : Care services: U.S. commission says too many youngsters are ‘unhealthy’ and ‘lacking direction.’ It calls them ‘the poorest group in America.’

A federal commission Thursday painted a troubling portrait of America’s children, saying too many are reaching adulthood “unhealthy, illiterate, unemployable and lacking both moral direction and a vision of a secure future.”

The National Commission on Children, releasing its interim report to the President and Congress, said current realities “raise serious questions about the reach and effectiveness of existing public and private sector policies and programs to support children and their families.”

Calling children “the poorest group in America,” the commission said that one out of every five children is living in poverty--in urban areas it is one out of every three--and that too many children are entering school “unprepared” to learn.

Further, the report said, the nation’s health care policies have “harsh and senseless consequences” for children. It noted that an estimated 10.6 million children, or 19%, lack health insurance.

The panel also said that drug and alcohol use by parents, as well as drug-related crime and violence, is as much a threat to children as the use of drugs by children themselves.

Taken together, “this is a personal tragedy for the young people involved and a staggering loss for the nation as a whole,” said Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), commission chairman. “The health and vitality of our economy and our democracy are in danger.”

Advocacy groups have been saying many of the same things in recent years, but the panel’s findings are expected to bring added credibility and influence on policy-making because of its broad membership and bipartisanship.

“While some of the data in the report will not shock those who work with poor children every day, this report will reach millions of Americans who are unaware of the desperate plight of America’s poor children,” said James Weill, general counsel for the Children’s Defense Fund. “It is a stage-setting document.”

The commission is a 36-member bipartisan panel appointed by the President and Congress to develop a national blueprint of action for America’s children. It includes members of Congress and other public officials, child health and development experts and representatives of advocacy, labor and business groups.

The commission made no recommendations Thursday, saying its interim report was meant to lay out “emerging themes” that will likely form the basis for its final report, due in March, 1991.

The commission predicted that the recommendations in its final report “will be bold, and . . . will require the attention of every American” and “will almost certainly entail difficult choices about national priorities in an era of limited new public resources.”

Currently, the panel said, “the country is not doing enough to ensure that adults--starting with parents--give children the time and attention they need for a good start in life.”

To learn, “children must be healthy, fed, rested and secure,” the report said. Yet an increasing number of children are not getting the “nurturing, care and support they need in their early years to start school ready and able to learn,” the report said.

For example, while increasing numbers of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in early education programs, low-income and minority children are less likely to be among them, the report said.

Also, many are entering school systems “that are rigid and inflexible” at a time when conditions in many children’s lives call for more flexibility, the report said.

In the area of health care, the report said, almost 40,000 babies die every year in the United States before they reach their first birthdays. Appropriate prenatal care can reduce the incidence of infant death and disability, the report said. Nevertheless, almost 25% of all live births in 1986--the latest figures available--were to women who did not begin prenatal care during the first three months of pregnancy, the report said.

Further, the report said, many childhood diseases, disabilities and deaths could be avoided through preventive care, such as immunizations. “Instead, they continue to cause pain and grief to children and families and cost the nation billions in health care services,” the report said.