It’s Bad News for America’s Kids : Children: A Carnegie Corp. study asserts that youngsters are suffering--and that not many people seem to care.

“A staggering number” of this country’s youngest citizens are part of a “quiet crisis” that gets scant attention from policy-makers, the media and the public, the Carnegie Corp. of New York charges in a new report.

Among the troubling findings for many of the 12 million children under age 3 in the United States:

* More than 25% are born to unmarried women. About every minute, an American adolescent has a baby.

* One-quarter of women get little or no prenatal care.

* Infants are the fastest-growing category of children entering foster care.

* One in three victims of physical abuse is a baby.

“Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children” contends that “the earliest years of a child’s life are society’s most neglected age group”--and that the seeds for many of society’s future problems take deep and lasting root when the concerns of this age group are overlooked.

“Our nation’s children under the age of 3 and their families are in trouble, and their plight worsens every day. To be sure, the children themselves are not quiet, they are crying out for help,” the report says.

“But these sounds rarely become sound bites. Babies seldom make the news. They do not commit crimes, do drugs or drop out of school.”

The study, to be released here this morning, is the culmination of three years of research by a Carnegie Corp. task force that sought to examine the developmental requirements of young children and to recommend a strategy to meet those needs.

“The life situation for many of the youngest children has deteriorated badly in the past 30 years,” task force co-chairs Dr. Eleanor Maccoby and Dr. Julius B. Richmond said in a joint statement.

“Infant mortality rates are too high, child immunizations are too low, more are born into poverty, more are in substandard child care while their parents work, more are being raised by single parents. When taken together, these and other risk factors can lead to educational and health problems that are much harder and more costly to reverse.”

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Maccoby is an expert on family functioning and children’s social behavior from Stanford University. Richmond, a former surgeon general, is a professor of health policy at Harvard University. Other members of the task force include former Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall and Dr. Jonas Salk.

They are among 350 specialists in the field of early childhood development who will attend a three-day national conference here this week to discuss the report and its implications. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will address the group’s opening session, followed by talks by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.

Among the major conclusions in the report is its assertion that “parents do not function in a vacuum.” Along with parents, business, communities, educational institutions and government have a shared responsibility for the well-being of children, the report argues.

The Carnegie Corp. task force found also found “no clearly defined institutions such as schools that serve children under age 3 and that services and supports are not designed in an integrated fashion.”

Community-based services and supports for families with young children are among the recommendations the report makes in its call for a “systematic approach to combatting this ‘quiet crisis’ of America’s children.”