[C] Children

Dear Friends,

Charles Blow's column in The New York Times on Saturday (here) entitled "The Decade of Lost Children" was really depressing.  I knew that we, as a country, were letting our children down, but I had no idea we were doing the terrible and immoral job that we are doing.  Mr. Blow references a report by the Children's Defense Fund (here) and cites some of their findings:

• The number of children living in poverty has increased by four million since 2000, and the number of children who fell into poverty between 2008 and 2009 was the largest single-year increase ever recorded.
• The number of homeless children in public schools increased 41 percent between the 2006-7 and 2008-9 school years.
• In 2009, an average of 15.6 million children received food stamps monthly, a 65 percent increase over 10 years.
• A majority of children in all racial groups and 79 percent or more of black and Hispanic children in public schools cannot read or do math at grade level in the fourth, eighth or 12th grades.
• The annual cost of center-based child care for a 4-year-old is more than the annual in-state tuition at a public four-year college in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Here are some more terrifying facts from the report.

How America Ranks Among Industrialized Countries in
Investing in and Protecting Children
1st in gross domestic product
1st in number of billionaires
1st in number of persons incarcerated
1st in health expenditures
1st in student expenditures
1st in military technology
1st in defense expenditures
1st in military weapons exports
17th in reading scores
22nd in low birthweight rates
23rd in science scores
30th in infant mortality rates
31st in math scores
31st in the gap between the rich and the poor
Last in relative child poverty
Last in adolescent birth rates (ages 15 to 19)
Last in protecting our children against gun violence
The United States and Somalia (which has no legally constituted government) are the only two United Nations members that have failed to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

How can the richest nation in the world treat its children so poorly?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal