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Illinois School Board Journal
July-August 2000

Critical threats to America’s children

There can be no greater measure of a society than how it treats its children. Our children are our most precious resource, and they are our future. Today’s children are tomorrow’s heads of state, captains of industry, spiritual and community leaders, and stars of the sports, arts and entertainment world. We hold their future in our hands — and our future is in their hands.

"America is a country of vast wealth, great compassion and seemingly limitless opportunity. But somehow, we have neglected over the years to ensure that every child receives a reasonable chance to grow up to achieve his or her fullest potential.

"As surely as any enemy America has confronted in war, these critical threats jeopardize our way of life, our values as a civilized society and our future itself. To diminish these threats to our children then will require an alliance of every American institution with a sincere, strong and sustained effort."

So opens the introduction to a study called "Ten Critical Threats to America’s Children: Warning Signs for the Next Millennium." The study was released by a coalition of organizations working for the benefit of children, including the National School Boards Association.

Other sponsors include the National League of Cities, Youth Crime Watch of America, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital and the National Association of Child Advocates.

"The solutions are feasible if we work together," said Clarence Anthony, president, National League of Cities and mayor of South Bay, Florida. "This report is not about gloom and doom — it’s about the obstacles our children face and embracing a national agenda that will benefit them in the next millennium."

Mary Ellen Maxwell, president of NSBA, said "the problems confronting our children truly are challenges to all of America. Either we meet those challenges or they will become obstacles to our future."

All of the threats addressed in the report are documented by research that included interviews with a range of experts and up-to-date data from distinguished child advocacy organizations, government agencies, professional associations and media sources.

The numbers associated with each issue do not denote rank within the report; together they represent some of the most chronic and pervasive risks to America’s children. The critical threats are:

The Plague of Poverty — One in five American children lives in poverty. As a result, their lifetime contribution to the economy will decline by an estimated $130 billion because poor kids grow up to be less educated and less productive workers. Children growing up poor are much more likely to experience an array of problems regarding their health, emotional well-being, school-readiness and achievement — and their employability as adults.

Solutions: Programs that help working poor parents gain better access to child care and health care and expand access to higher education and capital can help. There is also a need for higher family incomes, which can be attained by raising the minimum wage, better outreach efforts by subsidized programs and better enforcement of child support payment laws.

Abuse and Neglect at Home — The legacy of child abuse and neglect is seen starkly in the experiences of the 25,000 to 30,000 young people who leave foster care each year to take on the responsibilities of adult life, either by reaching 18 or by being emancipated. Within one year, 25 to 40 percent experience homelessness, only 40 to 50 percent will have completed high school, less than half will have jobs, and over 60 percent of the young women will have babies within four years.

Solutions: We must offer more quality out-of-home care for abused children and streamline the adoption process to provide children a sense of permanency more quickly. We also must address the drug and alcohol problems of adults that often fuel episodes of abuse and neglect.

Violent Crime — Violent juvenile crime arrests in America have fallen 25 percent since 1994, in part due to tougher laws. However, public concern remains high because of the volume and visibility of crimes involving children, both as victims and perpetrators. In 1997, law enforcement agencies made about 2.8 million arrests of youths under the age of 18.

Solutions: Parents and other supervising adults must take additional steps to make sure that guns and other weapons stay out of the hands of children. Schools and communities must offer more quality after-school programs — for all ages — to ensure children are spending their time productively and not getting into trouble on the streets. Promoting parental involvement at schools and in the community are other ways of preventing juvenile crime.

Dangerous Escapes — The 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse showed that overall, illegal drug use declined among young people ages 12 to 17 from 1997 to 1998. However, that followed a dramatic rise in drug use among youths from 1991 to 1996. The teen years are also a time of sexual experimentation. More than half of girls and three quarters of boys under age 18 are sexually active, and each year three million American teens are infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Solutions: The most effective way of preventing drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse is by educating parents, teachers and school-aged children about the signs, symptoms and dangers. Parents can influence their children by not using harmful substances themselves.

Youth should receive information from their parents and their communities that supports their decision to abstain from sex.

Children Having Children — Every year in America, one million teenage girls become pregnant and more than half give birth. Studies have suggested that 43 percent of all teenage girls in this country will become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20. And according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, more than 80 percent of teenage pregnancies are either mistimed or unwanted.

Solutions: Although teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined in America, they are still far too high. Youth should receive information that supports their decision to abstain from sex and should be encouraged to ask their parents or other trusted family members for information. Human service professionals must be better trained in issues of teen pregnancy prevention.

Inadequate Child Care — About 65 percent of mothers with children under 6 years old, and 78 percent of women with children between the ages of 6 and 17 are in the labor force, creating a need for affordable, quality child care, but that can be difficult to find. An alarming percentage of the child care in America is poor to mediocre. One four-state study found that 40 percent of the rooms serving infants in child care centers were so poorly run that they actually put at risk children’s health, safety and development.

Solutions: Polls show many Americans support additional tax breaks for enrolling their children in child care. Schools and communities can also establish scholarship funds to assist families who need help paying for child care. The public and private sectors must step up to the challenge by fully funding quality programs.

Absent Parents — In many families today, it is necessary for both parents to work, making it even more difficult for parents to know what their children are doing, who they are hanging around with and what they are thinking. Every day, nearly 5 million children come home to an empty house because their parents are working, and in many instances, there’s nothing parents can do about it. It is during the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. period when juvenile crime and victimization peaks in America.

Solutions: Parents must understand what messages in the media are influencing their children and be prepared to talk through sensitive subjects. They must take the time to ensure, as best as possible, that their children are engaged in supervised, healthy activities.

Lack of Health Care — In 1998, an estimated 11.1 million children under 18 had no health insurance. Children suffering from untreated illnesses often are not ready to learn, and thus struggle to keep up in school. One study found that uninsured children were 25 percent more likely to miss school than kids who were insured. Providing children access to affordable, quality health care and mental health services can address an array of problems that, if left untreated, often explode into severe family or community problems.

Solutions: Accessible, affordable and comprehensive health care for all children is critical to ensuring the societal health of America. Until that happens, we must preserve the federal guarantee of Medicaid for all poor children, and take additional steps to enroll those children who are eligible yet not participating. We must improve Medicaid benefits and broader health insurance coverage for uninsured children, and oppose efforts to sacrifice good coverage for wider, inadequate coverage.

New Pressures in the Classroom — America’s elementary and secondary schools face a variety of complex challenges in educating our children in the next millennium. From spotty academic performance and overcrowded classrooms to continuing high dropout rates and threats and fears of violence on campus, children face pressures never seen before in the classroom.

Solutions: Schools must receive adequate levels of state and federal funding to improve academic scores for all students and reduce class sizes as well as receive adequate resources to provide for the increasing numbers of students enrolled in special education programs. Parents, schools and communities must work cooperatively to identify at-risk students and direct them to alternative learning programs to prevent them from leaving school.

Dangers in the Environment — Every day, children are exposed to known carcinogens, neurotoxic substances such as lead and mercury and potentially dangerous pesticides. These substances can lead to serious developmental problems in children, and in extreme cases, even death. Lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are among the substances suspected of having harmful and perhaps permanent neurological effects on children.

Solutions: For our children, we must work to protect the air that we breathe, the water that we drink and the land that we live on. Communities should dedicate additional resources toward surveying older homes — particularly those of the poor — to determine if lead-based paints are endangering children. Pesticide makers should better educate parents about the potential health risks of common pesticides used indoors and out.

"Now that we have identified these threats, it is important to keep the nation focused on addressing them," said Tamara Copeland, president of the National Association of Child Advocates. "Our goal is to generate greater recognition of these problems, establish and maintain a dialogue about them, and develop a network of community partners to offer the best possible conditions for our children."

The solutions offered in the report range from legislative action to expand current assistance programs for working poor families to more active parental roles in monitoring how and where their children spend time and what kind of television programs they watch.

"The warning signs and solutions outlined in this report are important for all of us together, and not just for our children. Their future is in our hands, and ultimately, our future will be in their hands," said Mayor Anthony.

The report can be found at http://www.nsba.org/highlights/ten_threats.htm.