
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010369
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NO SURPRISE/ POOR KIDS, POORER FUTURE

AMERICA'S poorest citizens are its children, a number of whom reach adulthood illiterate, unhealthy, and unable to hold a job. A federal commission's bleak picture of the status of children contained no surprises, and perhaps that's partly why it's so unsettling.

Among the dismal statistics cited by the National Commission on Children in a report issued last week: One in five children lives in poverty; 100,000 are homeless. About 10.6 million children (19 percent) have no health insurance. Every year 40,000 babies die before they reach their first birthday. To make matters worse, the number of children living in poverty is rising. In 1970, 15 percent of the nation's children lived in poor families.

Meanwhile, the number of impoverished elderly is decreasing. That's to be celebrated, to be sure. But there is something very wrong with our priorities when children are the nation's poorest group. The future costs will be high.

Many of the problems cited in the commission's report are ones for which we already have answers. But the solutions are not being applied because of funding restrictions.

For instance, the commission said too many children are entering school unprepared to learn. Studies have shown that children who are not ready for school often never catch up with their classmates.

The Head Start program has been an unqualified success in getting low-income children ready for school. But because of limited funding, it reaches only a fraction of the children it could help.

We also know that health care for children and their mothers can reduce many of the problems that go along with poverty. Prenatal care reduces the number of infant disabilities. Preventive medicine, including immunizations, reduces children's health problems. Healthy children have more energy and are better able to concentrate on schoolwork.

The federal commission's report contained no recommendations. They will be made in a final report to be completed in about a year. That report probably won't contain surprises, either.

We don't know how to eliminate poverty, but we do know how to give poor children a better start in life. And we know this would pay future dividends. The status of children in this country is not likely to advance, though, until Congress and the administration change their spending priorities.

by CNB