CHILDREN IN POVERTY

The AFT has welcomed the renewed attention to our public schools of the past five years, and we have been active participants in the search for improvement in our children's education. We appreciate the resurgence of the traditional American faith in education, the belief that education is the key to individual and national success. But although we share this belief, we are deeply troubled by the assumption that education alone can or will solve the nation's economic and social problems. And, we are deeply alarmed by the indifference, insensitivity and inaction surrounding the economic and social problems of the children we teach and otherwise serve.

Today, children are the poorest segment of the nation's population.

Children are seven times as likely to be poor as people over 65.

Over 20 percent of all children under 18 currently live in families whose incomes fall below the poverty line.

Twenty-five percent of all children under six are now living in poverty.

Almost two-thirds of all poor children are white, but both blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to be poor; 43 percent of black and 40 percent of Hispanic children are poor, with black children almost three times more likely to be poor than white children.

Nearly one-half of all children living in young families in 1985 were poor¾almost double the percent rate in 1973. The incidence of poverty among children in young white families nearly doubled from 1973- 1985, and the poverty rate of children in all young two-parent families more than doubled.

In 1985, 66 percent of black children, over 70 percent of Hispanic children, and nearly half of all white children living in female-headed households lived in poverty.

Our public schools have traditionally provided a route out of poverty for many children, and they continue to do so. But today, equal opportunity, one of the historic missions of public education, is being severely compromised by the sheer magnitude of poverty among children. In our inner cities especially, where 40 percent of the nation's children in need are concentrated, it is hard to find a school whose student body is not overwhelmingly poor. Poverty does not consign a child to school failure, but school failure is closely correlated to poverty.

Poor students, regardless of race, are three to four times more likely to become dropouts than more eco­nomically advantaged students.

Schools with higher concentrations of poor students have significantly higher dropout rates than schools with fewer poor students.

Among teens living in poverty, more than four out of 10 white teens, more than half of Hispanic teens and more than six out of 10 black teens fall in the lowest quintile on skills tests. Over half of the 15-to-18-year-olds surveyed with family incomes below poverty level have basic skills in the lowest of five skills groups. Even among poor students who succeed in school, poverty has now become a major barrier to pursuing higher educational opportunities. Only one out of six poor black high school graduates attends college, while among both whites and blacks living above poverty, more than one out of three high school graduates go on to college.  In 1977, black and white high school graduates were almost equally likely to attend college--a rate of 51 percent for whites and 50 percent for blacks. But between 1977 and 1986, while the percentage of 18-to 24-year-old white high school graduates entering college increased from 51 percent to 56 percent, the percentage of black college-bound seniors declined from 50 percent to 36.5 percent, and the percentage of Hispanics bound for college fell from 51 percent to 44.4 percent.

Schools should not be absolved from their share of the responsibility for this nation's diminishing record of providing equal educational opportunities to poor children. But if schools are to be held accountable for educating children, then other sectors of our society must also face up to their responsibility to help ensure that the basic needs of children for health, nutrition and shelter are met. Yet today, on a number of vital indica­tors, the U.S. more resembles a developing country than the richest nation in the world.

After declining for more than two decades, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. is no longer improving. In  1985, the U.S. ranked 19th worldwide in infant mortality. When the black infant mortality rate is considered, the U.S. ranked 28th worldwide, worse than Cuba and Bulgaria and equal to Costa Rica and Poland.

In 1985, approximately one in every 15 infants¾one in every 18 white infants, one out of eight black infants, and one out of nine nonwhite infants¾was born at low birth weight. Poor children are twice as likely to be born at low birth weight than non-poor children. Low birth weight infants are at significantly greater risk of such lifelong disabilities as retardation, cerebral palsy, autism, vision and hearing impairments and learning disabilities. Even before these children begin school, then, their capacity to participate in and benefit from the regular education program is jeopardized. After steady decline from 1960 to 1979, the rate of low birth weight is increasing and, with it, the proportion of children who will enter our schools already at risk of school failure.

The percentage of two-year-olds immunized against major childhood diseases declined from 1980 to 1985. In 1985, one in three nonwhite inner-city children between one to four years of age had received no immunization against measles, mumps or rubella.

In 1985, more than 11 million children younger than 18--one in every six children and one out of every three poor children¾were not covered by either public or private health insurance--a 16 percent increase in just three years.

One in every eight poor children has no regular source of medical care.

In 1986, Medicaid, the nation's largest public health program for poor children, served 200,000 fewer children than in 1978, when there were nearly a third fewer poor children.

In 1985, almost 500,000 American children were affected by malnutrition. In 22 of 25 major U.S. cities, requests for emergency food assistance in 1986 increased by an average of 25 percent.

Half of all food stamp recipients are children. Despite an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line, from 29.3 million in 1980 to 33.1 million in 1985, food stamp participation decreased. The number of persons receiving food stamps for every 100 persons below the poverty line fell from 68 in 1980 to 60 in 1985.

The prospects of poor children even having a roof over their heads, let alone a place to do homework, have declined. Each year, an estimated 2.5 million people lose their homes. In 1985, more than 8 million low-income renters were in the market for the 4.2 million units renting at prices they could afford--30 percent of income. Between 1980 and 1985, the gap between affordable units and low-income persons seeking them rose 120 percent, and federally assisted housing funds for the poor and near poor dropped by 70 percent. In 1985, only 4 million of the 35 million potentially eligible households received any federal housing assistance.

Families with children now represent more than one-third of the homeless population nationwide, and as much as 50 percent in Trenton, N.J., Providence, R.I., and other cities. In New York City, in September 1987, 12,000 homeless children were "sheltered," more than the total number of homeless single men and women combined.

An estimated 1.9 million children were reported abused or neglected in 1986, an increase of over 50 percent since 1981. Approximately 40 percent of children reported abused and neglected are of preschool age; almost 25 percent are teenagers.

For all too many children, school is the safest institution in their community, a place to rest, a place to hear a kind word, an opportunity to get a decent meal (although funding for the four basic child nutrition programs was cut by 29 percent from FY 1982 through FY 1985). For all too many schools and teachers, ministering to or coping with hungry, sick, tired, abused, neglected and homeless children is overwhelming the educative functions of schools; back to basics in this context¾a reality for our nation's urban schools¾means providing for those basic needs of children that must be met before learning can even begin.

Liberals and conservatives alike support a "safety net" to protect people, and especially children, from the depths of poverty. Yet, over the past decade, the holes in the net have become huge, and they are growing. Liberals and conservatives alike extol the ethic of work and self-sufficiency. Yet, over the past decade, well-paying jobs have either disappeared or been replaced by low-paying jobs, and the ability of even people who work to support their families has seriously eroded.

Since 1979, the nation lost 1.6 million manufacturing jobs. During the same time, over 80 percent of the new jobs created were in wholesale and retail trades or in services. Average earnings in the entire service sector were only two-thirds of those in manufacturing.

Although the number of working mothers with children under 18 increased more than 50 percent, the real median income of two-parent families with children fell between 1973 and 1985. Families must now work much harder just to keep from losing ground.

The federal minimum wage is now worth only 70 percent of its 1979 value and has not been raised to adjust for inflation since 1981. Full-time, year-round work at the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour now yields annual earnings that are less than three-fourths of what it takes¾ $9,300¾to lift a family of three out of poverty, and less than two-thirds¾$11,200¾to lift a family of four out of poverty. In 1979, 2.8 million Americans who were paid on an hourly basis earned so little that full-time work could not lift a family of three out of poverty. In 1985, that number jumped to more than 10.6 million.

Almost 14 million Americans are either unemployed, too discouraged to seek work or forced to accept part-time jobs because full-time jobs are not available. Blacks and Hispanics suffer from the highest unemployment rates, largely because the loss of jobs in basic industries has hit them the hardest. Urban minorities have been especially vulnerable to structural economic changes, such as the shift from goods-producing to service industries, the increasing polarization of the labor market into low-and high-wage sectors, innova­tions in technology and higher education requirements, and the relocation of manufacturing industries away from central cities. (Sources of statistics and other data: Children's Defense Fund, A Call for Action to Make our Nation Safe for Children: A Briefing Book on the Status of American Children in 1988; Committee for Economic Development, Children in Need: Investment Strategies for the Educationally Disadvantaged; William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged.)

To some, these grim statistics and trends speak a counsel of despair: a failure of the work ethic, individual responsibility and restraint. We, too, uphold these ethics, but see in these statistics and trends the loss of jobs and the erosion of earned wages, the failure of public and private responsibility, and the structural changes and constraints that have undermined the capacity to exercise individual responsibility. It is indeed a grim moment in American history when even working hard fails to keep people out of poverty. It is a grim fact that the unraveling of the "safety net" that promoted mobility out of poverty has resulted in a growing underclass. It is a tragedy that children are being made to bear a burden that they did not create and that they cannot overcome alone. And it is folly to think that this nation can have a future without caring about its children. The bitter fruit of our neglect of children now is millions of dead-end lives later¾physical, mental and emotional incapacity, greater school failure, teenage Pregnancy, welfare dependence, chronic illness, crime and political alienation.

The deteriorating condition of children in America reflects the choices this nation has made. The counsel of hope is that different choices can be made and must be made. These choices are expensive. They are also cost effective, an investment in our future. For unless we invest in children now, this nation faces a killing loss of productivity and a drain of resources--and a huge tax bill to contain the results of neglect.

The AFT will remain tireless in our efforts to secure equal educational opportunities for children and adequate funding of public education. We also realize, and urge other public and private sectors of our society to recognize, that the best of schools, the best of curricula, the best of teaching¾the best of educations¾will not dramatically improve the educational opportunities and life chances of children who enter and progress through our schools with health, nutrition, housing and income problems so severe that many of them are defeated before they even begin.

Therefore, in order to help ensure that this nation's children reach their full potential and so that the public schools can more adequately perform their prime mission of educating children, AFT supports increased investments in:

• Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). $1 invested in the prenatal component of WIC saves $3 in short-term hospital costs, and early nutrition helps prevent retardation.

• Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment Services for Children (Medicaid). Children who receive these services have 10 percent lower annual health care costs; $1 spent on comprehensive prenatal care saves $3.38 later.

• Childhood Immunization Program. $1 spent saves $10 in later medical costs.

• Act for Better Child Care Services. More than 200,000 mothers not in the labor force turn down job offers each month because child care is either unavailable or unaffordable.

Head Start. $1 invested in quality preschool education returns $4.75 due to lowered costs of special education, welfare and crime.

• Chapter 1. Investing $600 for a child for one year can save $4,000 in the cost of a single repeated grade.

• Minimum Wage Increase.  This reduces expenditures for income support programs and increases personal income and payroll tax revenues.

• Job Corps. Every $1 invested in a teenager in Job Corps yields $1.45 in benefits.

• Federally assisted housing funds targeted to the poor and near poor and publicly funded programs to refurbish unsafe and dilapidated urban public school buildings.

The AFT will join forces with other education, labor, civil rights, children's advocacy and business groups on behalf of sound programs designed to lift children from poverty, and we ask that these groups join us in our efforts to secure adequate funds and programs for public education. The AFT will resist "divide-and-conquer" efforts that pit the health and welfare needs of children against their educational needs and urges all other groups and citizens to do the same, so that together we may advance the overarching needs of children.