child care - Digital Library Collections

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_____T...:H_._E... S T ATE 0 F AM E R J C A'S C H J L D R E N Y E ARB 0 0 K J 998"--__..... Moments in America for Children Every 9 seconds Every 10 seconds Every 15 seconds Every 25 seconds Every 32 seconds Every 36 seconds Every 36 seconds Every minute Every 2 minutes Every 3 minutes Every 3 minutes Every 4 minutes Every 5 minutes Every 18 minutes Every 23 minutes Every 100 minutes Every 4 hours a child drops out of school. a child is reported abused or neglected. a child is arrested. a child is born to an unmarried mother. a child sees his or her parents divorce. a child is born into poverty. a child is born to a mother who did not graduate from high school. a child is born to a teen mother. a child is born at low birthweight. a child is born to a mother who received late or no prenatal core. a child is arrested for drug abuse. a child is arrested for an alcohol-related offense. a child is arrested for a violent crime. an infant dies. a child is wounded by gunfire. a child is killed by gunfire. a child commits suicide. ment of $365 a month to a poor family undermine personal responsibility when billions in "subsidies and incentives"-euphemisms for government welfare for the nonpoor and powerful-do not? 4. Why should every 66-year-Qld in the United States be guaranteed health coverage and not every 6-year-Qld or 16-year-Qld? Is one life more valuable than the other? Why should a child in one state have a chance to live and grow up healthy and not a child in another state? Why should our leaders decide it is acceptable to provide health insurance to every other child? And why are some of our political leaders and powerful lawyers so eager to protect a tobacco industry that saps 420,000 lives a year, $50 billion in direct health costs, and entices nearly 2 million children to smoke and shorten their lives? Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and former Food and Drug Administration head David Kessler propose a $2 a pack tobacco tax to deter teen smoking. That money not only could save millions of young lives by preventing them from smoking but also fund millions of children's hopes and dreams. A $2 tobacco tax would 3. How much do we truly value children and families when we don't put our money and our respect behind our words? Is a child care worker who earns $6.12 an hour, $12,058 a year, and receives no benefits 182 times less valuable to America's future than the average professional basketball player who earns $2.2 million a year, or 162 times less valuable than the average HMO head who made $1.95 million in 1996? Is she only one-fourth as important to America's well-being as an advertising manager for a tobacco brand who makes $23.32 an hour? Most states require 1,500 hours of training to become a manicurist or hair stylist, but more than 30 states do not require a single hour of training for child care workers. What family values dictate a public policy in many states that pays more to nonrelatives than to relatives to care for children whose parents cannot nurture and protect them? Why are we willing to spend $10,000 a year to place a child in a foster home and much more to place a child in an institution after the family fails but refuse to invest $4,500 in job creation, child care, and income supplements for poor parents? Why does an average welfare payxviii CHI L D R EN' S D E FEN S E FUN D
INTRODUCTION yield more than $100 billion dollars. That is enough to end childhood poverty, fund child care for working families, and ensure every child the healthy start that the tobacco industry has done so much to destroy. 5. Why is the United States, save Somalia (which lacks a legally constituted government to act), alone among nations in failing to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child? All the other nations of the world are willing to commit to the convention's goals of ending illegal child labor, sexual exploitation, violent abuse of, and capital punishment for children. Why do we refuse to pledge to make reasonable efforts to give all of our nation's children the adequate health care, food, shelter, and education that should be every child's birthright? 1. We can afIlfm rather than undermine our children's strengths and differences. A wonderful animal parable illustrates how so many institutions and professionals hurt rather than help children. Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of the new world. So they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. And to make it easy to administer, all of the animals had to take all ofthe subjects. The duck was excellent in swimming-better, in fact, than his instructor-and made passing grades in flying. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and drop swimming to practice running. The duck kept this up until his feet were badly worn and he was only average, at last, in swimming. But average was acceptable in that school, so nobody worried about that except the duck. The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he became frustrated in the flying class, where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed charley horses from overexertion and got a C in climbing and a D in running. The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely in the climbing class, for even though he beat all the others to the top of the tree, he insisted on using his own way to get up there. At the end of the year an abnormal eel who could swim exceedingly well and also run, climb, and fly a little had the highest average and was How We Can Stand for Children and Help Transform America valedictorian. Prairie dogs kept their child out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their child to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school. 2. We can work coUaboratively. No single person, institution, or government agency can meet aU ofour children's and families needs. But each ofus, taking one or more of those needs, can together weave the seamless web of family and community and private sector support children need. We must work together and resist the political either/or-ism and organizational turf-ism that plague so much policy development, advocacy, service, and organizing today. Good parenting and good commuruty, employer, and governmental supports for parents are inextricably intertwined. Good moral principles that are professed and practiced at home, on the job, in our communities and public life together create a positive culture for raising good children. Good volunteers and good voters who take both service and advocacy seriously are required. Good policy arises out of good politics, which arises out of informed and active parents and citizens who stand up for and organize effectively for children. Good mentoring programs require committed, sensitive people who will stick with children over a sustained period and full-time staff and management infrastructures to train, deploy, and monitor them. Great visions remain simply that unless they are broken down into manageable and achievable pieces for action that then are well implemented. CHI L D R EN' S D E FEN S E FUN D xix
Page 2 and 3: About CDF he Children's Defense Fun
Page 4 and 5: Copyright © 1998 by Children's Def
Page 6 and 7: Acknowledgments Susanne Martinez, d
Page 8 and 9: THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN YEA
Page 22 and 23: .... T...-HE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHI
Page 36 and 37: ....._--"T..;H;;..;;;.E STATE OF AM
Page 46 and 47: ......._---'T;..;;.;;H....;;E STATE
Page 48 and 49: '--__...;T;...;;;H...;E;;....S T AT
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THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN YEA
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L-__T.HE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDRE
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CHAPTER CHILD NUTRITION any America
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CHILD NUTRITION gram requirements,
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CHILD NUTRITION ;;0".;'-'- .... pro
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.... ....;;.c H I L D N U TR IT I O
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CHAPTER CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CR
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CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CRISIS pas
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CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CRISIS in
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CHILDREN A D FAMILIES IN CRISIS kin
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CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CRISIS Box
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CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN CRISI""S"-
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CHAPTER ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY fter r
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ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY 512,115 babies
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ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY sexual activit
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ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY ings. However,
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ADO L ESC EN T PRE G NAN C Y .... h
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106 CHI L D R EN' S D E FEN S E FUN
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THE STATE OF AMERICA'S CHILDRE YEAR
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THE STATE OF AMERICA'S HILDREN YEAR
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Selected Web Sites Listed below are
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