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Getting Set for 1999

-- E Pluribus Unum

-- Census Counts

-- A Healthy Start

-- Education for All

-- Safety

-- Mustering the Political Will

Focus on the States in 1999

Year-End Reports in 1998 Bring Good News

Making the Case for Kids in 1999

-- "It's the Brain!"

-- Family Values

GETTING SET FOR 1999

Ethnic diversity, the upcoming Census 2000, state efforts to improve
children's health care services, debates on funding public education, and
strategies to keep kids safe from harm are all on the docket for 1999.
Here's some background for KidsCampaigners. Stay tuned to the KidsCampaigns
Weekly (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/news-weekly.html) for updates and news
on these and other issues that impact kids' lives.

E Pluribus Unum

As we enter the 21st century with an increasingly diverse populace,
America's unique history in welcoming and valuing people from different
cultures and ethnic backgrounds will be even more apparent. With greater
concentrations of ethnic minorities among the young, our kids are already
experiencing a more diverse culture than their parents. How we greet the
changing demographics, with celebration or fear, will have a tremendous
effect on the civic culture our kids inherit. Will we reinvent the "melting
pot" or find a new approach in multiculturalism? Watch for increased
attention to the changing demographics of America this year, especially this
spring when the President's Initiative on Race will release its report.

Census Counts

The Constitution requires us to count ourselves every ten years. The census
provides the demographic numbers for apportioning Congressional districts
and distributing billions of federal funding dollars. As we head into the
year 2000 census, the political battle lines are already drawn between those
who want to rely on a strict head count exclusively, claiming this is
constitutionally determined, and those who want to include a statistical
sampling, claiming this is necessary to ensure a more accurate count. The
1990 census head count missed millions of Americans, over half of them
children, so how the Census counts us will have an impact not only on how
Congressional districts are drawn to favor Republicans or Democrats, but
also on how distributions of federal funds for education, health, nutrition,
housing, etc. reflect accurate counts of families in need in the different
areas of the country.

The details about the census may be esoteric, but the stakes for kids are
high in this increasingly politicized issue. Watch for a Supreme Court
decision expected this spring, and further debates heading into
implementation of the Census 2000.

A Healthy Start

The 105th Congress approved the largest increase in federal funding for
children's health -- $48 billion over ten years -- since 1965, when Medicaid
was enacted. The states have developed their state plans for the Children's
Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and kids' advocates will be working to
ensure that their states make good on the promise of CHIP to expand health
care coverage for the 10 million low-income children who are currently
uninsured.

CHIP also represents an opportunity to expand access to dental health care
for kids, a painfully neglected part of kids' health needs, and parity for
children's mental health needs, which are too often unrecognized or ignored.
Surgeon General David Satcher will be issuing a report on America's oral
health crisis in late 1999 and hosting a conference on children's unmet oral
health needs in spring of 2000. KidsCampaigns' feature on "Children's
Mental Health" (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Hot/mental/index.html) tells
the story of kids' emotional development and the ways parents and
communities can help kids with special emotional needs.

Children's environmental health issues are also expected to have greater
prominence in 1999. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will begin
implementing new legislation, with kids' advocates watching to see that the
EPA adheres to protections appropriate for kids' sizes and stages of
development. KidsCampaigns has background information on environmental
safety for kids in the Early Years feature
(http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Hot/Early/safety.html).

Education For All

According to multiple public opinion polls, the public is united in wanting
kids to have a good education, but it is divided over how to guarantee that
good education, or even how to define it. A good education, including
post-secondary training or education, is becoming increasingly critical for
earning a family income, but we are fundamentally divided over how to
maximize our kids' chances that they will start school ready to learn and
attend a school where they can succeed.

Debates over public education cover a wide range, from those who want to
improve public education across the board, by reducing class sizes and
improving teacher training, to those who want to target funding for vouchers
for private schooling.

The public is divided about the impact of higher standards on improving
schools or improving students' performance; about addressing the growing gap
between rich and poor school districts in technology resources, teacher
expertise, and classroom quality; about the importance of the basic "three
R's" vs. the need for schools to nurture teamwork, creativity, and
problem-solving; or about how best to teach children with limited English
proficiency or even how to teach young children to read.

The Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA) is up for re-authorization this
year. Will the public continue to divide on education values and
strategies, or will a consensus emerge that continues our tradition of
public support for public responsibility to educate all kids, rich or poor,
well-prepared or ill, proficient or challenged, eager or apathetic?

Follow the debate and the research on education and student achievement on
KidsCampaigns' revised section on education, slated to go up on the
KidsCampaigns website (http://www.kidscampaigns.org) later this winter.

Safety--Mustering the Political Will

A number of school shootings rocked public confidence in the safety of our
schools in 1998. Despite the statistics that tell us schools are among the
safest places for kids to hang out, public concern about school violence
increased public attention, if not public knowledge, about how communities
can help to keep kids out of harm's way.

Injury is the leading cause of death for kids age 1 through adolescence.
Will 1999 be the year the public keeps its attention on improving the odds
for kids' safety from traffic accidents, firearms, drugs, alcohol, etc.?
Most researchers and experts say we know how to prevent many "accidents"
from happening, and that prevention, though cheap, is still inadequately
funded. "Reducing the Burden of Injury," a new report
(http://www.nap.edu/bookstore/index.html) from the National Academy of
Sciences calls for a sustained public health effort to stem firearm injury
akin to that mounted to reduce traffic deaths. Watch also for
"Unintentional Injuries in Childhood," to be published by the Packard
Foundation's The Future of Children in late 1999.

Read KidsCampaigns abstracts, with links to important reports on kids'
well-being in the Get Smart section of the KidsCampaigns website
(http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Smart/rpreports.html).

FOCUS ON THE STATES IN 1999

The trend in recent years has been to move responsibility and funding for
human services from the federal government to the states. This coming year
will probably see an even greater emphasis on state policies, as bipartisan
law-making in Washington, DC is tied up in knots, at least for the first
half of the year, by increasingly partisan and polarized politics. In 1999,
it will be more important than ever for KidsCampaigners to focus on what's
happening in their states.

KidsCampaigners, concerned parents, and kids' advocates can all get the
information and connections they need to become active in their state via
KidsCampaigns' state pages, with information specific to each of the states.
On your state page (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/states) you can get find
out about events around your state, get your state's Kids Count and other
data on children's health, education, and economic well-being, support an
organization listed in your state database, or locate key directories of
services for families and kids in your state. You can use the Get Started
Bulletin Board to publicize your efforts for kids or add your organization
to the state database in the Get Connected section.

Here is a sampling of what's happening around the states.

Kids Count Databooks for SOUTH DAKOTA (ccochran@usd.edu), GEORGIA
(orders@georgians.com), SOUTH CAROLINA (803-734-2291) will be released this
month. All Kids Count Databook information is included in each of the state
pages (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/states) so check your own state for details.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation may have found a new model for improving child
welfare services. Casey's President Douglas W. Nelson was appointed to head
an out-of-court oversight group in a major settlement of the class action
lawsuit against the NEW YORK CITY Administration for Children's Services,
NYC's child welfare agency, thereby offering a mechanism for overhauling a
troubled child welfare agency without a long and corrosive trial and direct
court takeover of the system.

Kids' advocates are launching a year-long "new shoes and socks in a box"
campaign in MICHIGAN, using the reach of the Internet to collect and
distribute thousands of pairs of shoes and socks for needy kids
(http://www.jumpstartmich.com/dignity.html).

MARYLAND's Advocates for Children and Youth are implementing a campaign to
improve after-school options for kids, reflecting the top priority on
after-school time voted by participants in their annual convention last
summer. Email Matthew Joseph (policy@acy.org) to join this effort or for
more information.

Dade County, FLORIDA, is already gearing up a "Complete Count Committee" to
oversee and coordinate local activities for the year 2000 census, to prevent
the kind of serious undercount for Miami in the 1990 census.

CONNECTICUT will continue its "First Monday" forums on issues affecting
kids' lives this year. Check out their state page bulletin board for a full
listing (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/states).

OKLAHOMA Institute for Child Advocacy is taking nominations until February
15 for its Friends of Children Awards 1999. Call Ann Salazar (405-236-KIDS)
for details.

YEAR-END REPORTS IN 1998 BRING GOOD NEWS

Teen illicit drug use, led by marijuana, is heading down after 6 years of
steady increases, according to "Monitoring the Future"
(http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/mtf/), the annual survey of secondary school
students conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center for
the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

The juvenile arrest rate for violent crime fell by 23% from 1994 to 1997,
with robberies down 33% to reach the lowest rate for robberies since the
late 1970's, according to a new Department of Justice report
(http://www.ncjrs.org/ojjdp/press/ojp981210.html).

Teen birth rates declined in the 1990's, especially the birth rate for young
teens and for teens having a second child (down 21% between 1991 and 1996).
The overall teen birth rate has dropped 15% from 1991 to 1997
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/releases/98news/98news/teenpreg.htm).

MAKING THE CASE FOR KIDS IN 1999

"Kids are our most precious resource, our most vulnerable resource, our most
precious asset, and our future." That's the tireless rhetoric we hear in
support of making politics and communities work for kids. Here are some
perspectives to encourage public support for families and kids that may set
the terms of debate in 1999.

"It's the Brain!"

In 1998 increased public understanding of the importance of the social
environment on the developing brains of infants and toddlers helped bring
attention to the importance of how well parents and communities are able to
meet the needs of young children.

In 1999 watch for emerging research to further demonstrate the impact of
early social environments on the brain. New research is beginning to
confirm that for kids, environmental stress from violence, neglect, or
chronic uncertainty can affect their brain cells, permanently impairing
their ability to learn and cope with everyday challenges. Understanding how
the brain reacts differently to nurturance and stress underscores the
importance of both the physical and social environments of the early years.

The physical and emotional health and well-being of children are not only
intertwined, but also urgently dependent on the availability of nurturing,
language-rich, responsive environments for kids in the first, truly
formative years of life.

KidsCampaigns feature on The Early Years
(http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Hot/earlyyears.html) can give you an overview
of early brain development, its importance for kids, families, and
communities, and the issues that impact young children, like health care,
early school-readiness activities, and environmental and safety protections.

Family Values

Scratch the surface of most political discussions, according to
KidsCampaigns' research on public attitudes and message framing
(http://www.benton.org/Shop/pubs/kcearlyed.html), and you'll find a
discussion of closely held values--values like hard work and responsibility,
self-reliance and self-control, compassion and respect for others. Both
liberals and conservatives place a high value on the critical role of
families for raising children, but differ in their basic conceptions of what
marks a well-functioning family. What progressives call nurturance,
conservatives call coddling. Progressives or liberals tend to stress
respect and caring for each other, self-control, and teamwork, while
conservatives stress obedience, discipline, and self-reliance. Translated
in the political realm, progressives call for collective action to address
common problems, support for families to become self-sufficient, and the
importance of a government that ensures the basic well-being of its
citizens. Conservatives call for policies that reward self-reliance and
hard work. Conservatives take certain values as the absolute starting
point, the fundamental means to guide social action. Progressives seek
social values as the end result of social policies and practices empirically
demonstrated to be effective.

1998 saw an increasingly polarized political discussion of social values.
The moral question facing 1999 is whether our politics and our citizens will
continue to deepen the divide over "family values," or whether we can find
ways to stop talking past one another, taking the common values we share to
help implement better social policy, particularly services and programs that
support families and children in need--not only families in need of safe
shelter, health care, better nutrition, or competent educational
opportunities, but also families in need of leisure time together, a sense
of community, and a confidence in the value and success of their efforts.

KidsCampaigns' analyses of public attitudes toward social policies affecting
children is available via our website and in print. Check out key public
opinion surveys (http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Smart/pubopinion.html), an
analysis of campaign and political rhetoric in the Campaign '98 feature
(http://www.kidscampaigns.org/Hot/camp98/index.html), or order some of our
publications on public attitudes and message framing
(http://www.benton.org/Shop/pubs/kcearlyed.html).

The KidsCampaigns Weekly will return next week with its regular coverage of
news, reports, resources, and information for people who want to get
informed and get engaged to improve kids' lives.

Happy new year everyone!

Jan Richter, KidsCampaigns

Outreach Specialist

jan@benton.org