Public Policy and Young Children
Dear Elected Official:
This special issue of Early Report is written
for you whether you are at the
local, state or national level. In addition, this issue is being
disseminated to over 5000 concerned citizens across the U.S.
Recently, I asked people with widely varying roles in the
education of young children to write open letters to our leaders,
outlining their concerns about young children and families. The
response was profuse and enlightening. They assert that we are at
a crucial crossroads in the provision of support and education
for the youngest members of our society. There is a sense that
much is changing and the scales can tip either way. Beginning
with a letter written by Robert Wedl, Commissioner of the
Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning–and
extending through responses from advocates, parents and service
providers–the priorities seem clear: that we must use the
knowledge we have gained about the support families need to raise
their children to ensure that our youngest generation has the
best chance at success. As our newly reelected president and
those of you in the 105th Congress, and in state and local bodies
begin to address the challenges before us, we offer these facts,
strategies, and reflections about young children in our society.
This compendium is only a
beginning. As your constituents, we will be watching closely as
you begin debating policy that will affect children and families.
We will be visible and verbal in our efforts to inform your
decisions and influence policy. We stand ready and willing to
work closely with you to assure that issues important to children
and families remain the number one legislative priority in the
coming year.
Sincerely,
Mary McEvoy,
Ph.D.
Professor and Director, CEED
Increasing the
Capacity
of Minnesota Communities
by Robert J. Wedl
Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Children, Families and
Learning
In October 1, 1995, Minnesota
became the first state to unify services for children and their
families into one state agency–the new Department of
Children, Families and Learning. This department coordinates
programs that serve young children so that families in Minnesota
communities may have easier access to services that more closely
match their needs. The mission of the Department of Children,
Families and Learning is to increase the capacity of Minnesota
communities to measurably improve the well-being of children and
families by:
* Coordinating and integrating
state funded and locally administered family and children
programs;
* Improving flexibility in
design, funding, and delivery of programs affecting children and
families;
* Providing greater focus
on strategies designed to prevent problems affecting the
well-being of children and families;
* Enhancing local
decision-making, collaboration, and the development of new
governance models;
* Improving public
accountability through the provision of research, information
and the development of measurable program outcomes;
* Increasing the capacity of
communities to respond to the whole child by improving the
ability of families to gain access to the services;
* Encouraging the nurturing of
all children in the community by all of the members of the
community; and
* Supporting parents in the
dual roles as breadwinners and parents.
Minnesota continues to face many
challenges in making progress toward the above mentioned goals as
they relate to young children and families.
Prevention–The
influence of early environment on the brain is long-lasting. New
evidence suggests early stressors can impact brain function. A
genuine commitment to prevention and early intervention requires
initiatives that involve all families with young children.
Family involvement–When
designing community collaborative efforts, families of young
children must be involved in all levels of the discussion.
Minnesota communities have a long history in providing
coordinated and family centered services. These same communities
have a wealth of knowledge and experiences to share with other
components of the realigned community service system.
Flexible funding–Health
care and welfare reform will certainly impact services provided
by the education system to young children and their families in
terms of potential cost shifting and resource reallocation.
Supportive communities–The
percentage of children whose basic needs are not being met is
increasing.
Public accountability–Measurable
system outcomes and indicators for children and families across
state and local agencies are necessary for program effectiveness,
policy development and resource allocation.
Policy development–It
is critical that federal, state and local policies enhance local
community capacity in reducing intrusive, separate, high cost
services for all families.
It is extremely important that all
of us in government, be it at the federal, state or local level,
keep children and family issues and concerns as a priority when
reforming current systems. These issues must be a major focus of
policy discussion and development as we enter the 21st century.
Only 3 in 100 households now
conform to the traditional family headed by a working husband
with a non-working wife and two children at home.
Source: Census Bureau, 1990.
Let the Future be Guided
by Our Humanity
by Sharon T. Henry
Executive Director
Early Childhood Resource Center
Minneapolis
We are truly blessed to have
another year, another legislative session, another opportunity to
move our society to one that believes that above all else, the
emotional, physical and spiritual health and well-being of our
children is paramount.
Yes, it is shameful that our
children witness and are victims of horrific violence. Yes, it is
shameful that as a nation we are so dysfunctional that we are
willing to deny thousands of children the right to food, shelter
and access to medical care. Yes, it is shameful that near the end
of the twentieth century we remain plagued by and burdened with
the sins of our "forefathers".
But we should not lose sight of
what is right and what is working. There is an incredibly
committed child care, early childhood profession that is
determined to learn from the mistakes of our past and provide all
children with healthy and consistent care and education. In
Minnesota the importance of eradicating violence and abuse from
the lives of young children is a priority and there are quiet
efforts happening at the community level which are profoundly
improving the spiritual quality of life for many children and
adults.
As a parent of three children
whose births are spread across three decades and as staff of a
small non-profit child care resource and referral organization, I
must believe in the power of human will to do what is right and
humane. Therefore, I know the future decisions you will make on
behalf of children and families will be guided by your humanity.
Poor
families who use paid child care devote more than one-fourth of
their entire income to it on an average, contrasted with 7
percent of income among non-poor families.
Source: Census
Bureau: National Child Care Survey, 1991.
Make Child Care a High
Priority
by Carol Weber Rohde
Executive Director
Resources for Child Caring
St. Paul
Like storm clouds on the horizon,
increased demand for child care services looms as changes in
welfare policies move parents on public assistance to work.
It is necessary to support these
families, and all working families, with an early
childhood caregiver or program that will nurture a child during
these critical years of formative development is essential.
Today’s choices are limited. Not only is there inadequate
supply, but the costs create a strain on all but the most
affluent of families. Annual costs of $6,000 per child are
common. Even with a job paying $9.50 an hour (double the current
minimum wage), child care costs for one child are 30 per
cent of pretax earnings.
The sad truth is that these child
care costs are still insufficient to pay a living wage to those
who work in the field. Low wages contribute to staff turnover
which leads to disruption of attachment between the caregiver and
the child. Ultimately, this vicious cycle affects our children.
During this, the 105th Congress,
please make child care a high priority on your list. The
well-being of our future leaders lies hidden today in the
development our children. Invest in training child care
providers, child care fee subsidy assistance and resources to
expand the supply and quality of child care.
Sound public policy demands that
our country’s primary resources, its children, receive not
just adequate care, but be given the opportunity to develop to
the best of their abilities. This and only this will insure a
healthy future for our country.
Existing
programs have too often taken fragmented, piecemeal approaches to
the complex issues facing children and families. Effective
policies have seldom been funded at sufficient levels to provide
adequate support to all families who might benefit.
Position
Statement, November 29, 1995
National Association for the Education of Young Children,
Washington , D.C.
A Comprehensive and
Hopeful Vision for Our National Agenda
Jan Herseth
Executive Director
Greater Minneapolis Day Care Association
It is becoming clear that our
nation is failing its children and families and allowing
childhood to be wrought with fear, hunger, poverty, neglect,
educational failure and hopelessness. Our national agenda for
children lacks commitment, far-sightedness and progress towards
outcomes that insure success and instill a sense of future. We
proclaim a common vision that unites us in a national movement
for children and families but it is a vision clouded by apathy,
racism and the inequitable distribution of resources.
We have destined millions of
children to live in distressed, segregated neighborhoods where
crime and violence prevent these geographical areas from
resembling anything close to the safe, secure embracing
neighborhoods of years gone by. Neighborhoods that were once
filled with children playing, neighbors gossiping over back-yard
fences and schools and churches as community gathering places
have been replaced by neighborhoods pock-marked by boarded up
buildings, bars on windows and crime run rampant. Children are
the product of their environments. These environments, these
neighborhoods, will never shape children who are resilient and
able to grow up with a sense of future and achievable
expectations.
With abounding richness and
resources in terms of human and financial capital, our country
must embrace a national movement for children and families
creating a comprehensive and hopeful vision that includes all
children. We know what it takes to create social capital needed
to raise healthy families in healthy communities, what conditions
are fundamental to insure their success. We know the list of
assets that children must have and what happens to children each
time one of those assets is replaced by a deficit. We know that
jobs, housing, education and child care build assets for families
that are passed on to their children.
Investing in safe and healthy
neighborhoods, in parent education and child care in quality
inclusive schools, and in neighborhood and family supports and
networks builds the infrastructure for healthy positive
development of children. Resources must be invested in
children where they live, in
neighborhood supports such as youth organizations and communities
of faith, in teaching families how to fish. If we don’t
invest in our children now, there will never be enough human or
financial capital to cure the ills that impoverished, uneducated,
disillusioned and hopeless grown up children will bring to bear.
There can be no better return for our dollar than that which we
reap from investing in our children, in their human capital.
Welfare Reform and Young
Children
Eva M. Zygmunt
Executive Director
Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children
With fundamental changes in the
welfare system, enacted by the passage of the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996,
welfare recipients across our nation, many with young children,
will be required to move from welfare toward self-sufficiency.
This change will, undoubtedly, bring about an unprecedented
growth in the need for care of our nation’s most vulnerable
children, those living in poverty. The National Association for
the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) "strongly believes
that all children, including these children, deserve access to
high-quality child care while their parents work, and that
welfare reform must include strong safeguards to ensure such
quality." According to NAEYC, "high-quality child care
promotes child development and learning and reflects the
inseparable nature of care and education."
The deficit in available child
care will undoubtedly create a challenging situation to states
faced with a surplus in demand for services. NAEYC strongly
encourages states to expand accessible, high-quality early
childhood services for all children. NAEYC believes that
"all children deserve high-quality care that is warm,
nurturing, and responsive to their individual needs, whether they
are in a child care center or school-based program, a family
child care home, or with a relative or trusted family
friend."
According to the Families and Work
Institute, "To achieve high quality in any early childhood
setting, states must ensure that all providers caring for
children have chosen to work in this field, have adequate
preparation, have access to resources and ongoing support, and
are adequately compensated through pay and benefits," no
matter where they find themselves along the continuum of care. It
is only through the achievement of these objectives that we can
ensure a healthy, nurturing, as well as culturally and
developmentally appropriate learning experience, for children.
With a growing body of research on
brain development and the importance of the early years on later
development, the Minnesota Association for the Education of Young
Children (MnAEYC) calls on its elected officials to ensure that
all children are afforded the opportunity for high-quality care
as their parents work, and that, in the words of Marian Wright
Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, we make
every effort to "leave no child behind."
One in five
American children–14.6 million–is poor.
Source:
Children's Defense Fund, 1994.
An agenda
that involves children's issues is a surefire vote winner. It is
curious that such an inherently positively received issue is not
on the front burner–that the jets aren't turned up real high
on children's issues, because once those issues are explained, it
is a categorical truth that people will embrace them and try to
move them and identify with candidates who are excited about
them."
Excerpt from an
interview with a house speaker for the research project State
Legislative Leaders: Keys to Effective Legislation for Children
and Families by the State legislative Leaders Foundation,
Centerville, MA.
Basic Sliding Fee–
A
Government Program that Works
Jim Koppel
Director
Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota
The recent welfare bill passed by
Congress promises to move people from welfare to work. However,
for every welfare recipient required to take a job or participate
in job activities, there are one or more additional children who
need low-cost, high-quality child care. Minnesota’s current
system of child care subsidies, the Basic Sliding Fee (BSF)
Program, has not kept up with current demand. In 1996, thousands
of working class families were on waiting lists for the program.
The BSF program is a good example
of a government program that works. Families who are trying to do
what society asks–namely, be employed and care for their
children - receive help affording child care on a sliding fee
basis. Parents are able to choose what type of care they would
like for their children, and are more able to afford stable, high
quality care.
Now there is a new need for
additional child care funding. Minnesota must have 30 per cent of
its eligible welfare caseload working in 1998, as required by the
new federal welfare law. We will need an additional $30.4 million
to pay for child care. In order for that 30 per cent to be
working, we estimate that at least 50 per cent of the caseload
will need to be involved in work-related activities, which would
require a total cost of $76 million in child care. Since these
work requirements increase each year, child care costs will
increase dramatically in the future.
Congress did not appropriate
adequate funds for child care subsidies. We are very concerned
that parents who are working and currently using the under funded
BSF Program will have to compete with people leaving welfare and
needing child care. If these child care needs are not met for
these families, we will be forcing parents to either place
children in unsafe child care settings or go back onto welfare.
The sliding fee approach to child
care will not only serve the needs of our working class families
but will also assure that the welfare reform efforts will be far
more successful. Most importantly, it will protect our children
by providing safe and nurturing child care. This is an investment
opportunity Minnesota can not afford to pass up.
The Real Cost of Low
Wages in Child Care
Margaret Boyer
Alliance of Early Childhood
Professionals
Low wages for the early childhood
work force have been documented since the late 1970’s when
salary surveys first looked at wages in child care centers and
more recently family child care home providers. A 1995 study by
the Alliance of Early Childhood Professionals (AECP) showed that
50 percent of child care center staff make under $6.99/hour.
Family child care home providers earn a net income of $7,800/year
for an average 60 hour work week. This study showed a 28 percent
turnover for head teachers, 41 percent turnover for assistant
teachers and 45 percent turnover rates for aides. When children
experience turnover as loss and grief, this creates an
environment where it is difficult for children to thrive to their
potential. Low wages are making it impossible to attract and
retain high quality and competent child care providers.
After years of working on
compensation issues, AECP saw little hope of making significant
changes unless a broad base of people and organizations made a
commitment to look at the system of child care in Minnesota. This
led to a year of study looking at child care from an economic
perspective. We now have a larger grasp of the relationship of a
child care system to the economics of the United States. New
developments in brain development have added to this new look.
Many people talk about the failure
of the public school system. We now know that the failure lies in
the shortcomings of the care and nurturance children receive from
birth to kindergarten. A quality early care and education system
has the potential to support families by stimulating and
nurturing children in ways that facilitate brain development,
moving children toward school readiness.
We also know that this system does
not cost nearly as much as was previously assumed. AECP’s
study titled, The Costs of Expanding Coverage of Child Care
Assistance in Minnesota shows that an effective early care
and education system will cost between $171 - $800 million/year.
Using this new information and a
strategy of demonstration projects, our organization, in concert
with many other organizations, has decided to strategically move
towards an effective fully funded system where the early
childhood work force can receive a fair wage. Join us in this
effort. For more information, call AECP at 612-721-4246 or FAX
612-721-0435.
Poor children are about two
times as likely to suffer from physical or mental disabilities
than non-poor children, five times as likely to be hospitalized
for poisoning, and at least three times as likely to receive
hospitalization for injuries in general.
Source: Children's Defense Fund,
1994.
Link Between
Impoverished
Early Childhood and Criminality
Sherilyn Goldsmith
University of Minnesota
Child Care Center
Minneapolis
I consider it a privilege to write
a letter to the officials who will soon have the opportunity to
impact legislation that affects young children and their families
in the new year. I write to you as an early childhood educator,
as a program administrator, as a doctoral student in Family
Education, and as a parent of three children.
Throughout my experience as an
undergraduate and graduate student, I have utilized every writing
opportunity possible to gather research on the critical
importance of providing resources to our young children and their
families, and to connect the relationship between impoverished
early childhood experiences and later delinquency and
criminality. I am not alone. Such studies have been confirming
the same hypothesis for forty years, and the outcome is
predictably the same: experiences during infancy and early
childhood impact, and in Continued on page 8
some studies serve as predictors
of, poor socialization skills, poor coping skills, and
ultimately delinquency, violence, and criminality. Certainly, not
every child who has an impoverished beginning becomes deviant,
but a disproportionate number of children who end up deviant have
had an impoverished beginning.
Why do I bring this to your
attention? It is simple cause and effect: poverty and it’s
lack of resources (food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and
education) are highly correlated to violence and criminality. I
ask you to compare the cost of an early childhood intervention
program for children at risk, with the annual cost of supporting
the incarceration of one convicted criminal. As a society,
we willingly commit our resources to the creation of new, and
comfortable, penal systems. But we balk at spending money on our
young children and their families. Young children are our
nation’s greatest resource–they hold the key to the
collective future for all of us. As a legislator, policy maker,
or public service leader, you have the power to shape the future
by designing those keys. How will you use your power?
Young families with
children–those headed by someone younger than 30–are
nearly six times more likely to be poor than childless families
overall. More than two in five children (42 percent) in these
families lived in poverty in 1992.
Source: Children's Defense Fund,
1994.
Support for Children with
Disabilities
Scott McConnell, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
Institute on Community Integration
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis
The Institute on Community
Integration is Minnesota’s University Affiliated Program on
Developmental Disabilities. Our mission is to improve the quality
of life for individuals with disabilities and their families by
expanding communities’ capacity for educational, vocational,
and recreational opportunities that fully include, and support
the development and independence of, these citizens. As you begin
a new year of deliberations and activities to represent the
people of these communities, we encourage you to consider several
general themes:
Early intervention is a wise investment in
both fiscal and human terms–whether it is developmental
intervention for young children at risk for learning and behavior
problems, or monitoring an intensive intervention for older
individuals with emerging problems. We know that early,
intensive, and individualized interventions will often produce
better outcomes, and produce these outcomes sooner and more
efficiently. By preventing problems, or reducing their potential
impact as early as possible, we save money and help
individuals participate and contribute more fully. We
encourage you to support efforts that intervene early in the
lives of children and families, before (or very soon after)
problems emerge.
Comprehensive and coordinated services–where
all needs are identified, and where a full array of formal and informal resources are
organized to meet these needs–make individuals’ and
families’ participation more efficient and all
services more effective. We encourage you to extend the
coordination and integration of services and supports for all
children and families, including those with disabilities.
Community-based,
inclusive programs–-where children and families receive
the services and supports needed in their homes and local
schools or communities–help children and families
become, and stay, full and participating members of their
communities. Community-based, inclusive services work and should
be maintained and strengthened. We encourage you to support
and extend community-based, inclusive services and supports for all
children and families.
Family participation in the design of
services–-where individuals with disabilities and their
family members participate fully in the selection of goals and
the design and evaluation of services and supports to meet these
goals - helps ensure that formal services and informal supports
are arranged in ways that meet the unique needs and preferences
of the "customers" for these efforts: children with
disabilities (or other special needs) and their families. We
encourage you to preserve individuals’ and families’
central responsibility for the direction, design, and evaluation
of services and supports they receive.
It has been said that a society
can be judged by the way it treats its most needy citizens.
Children with disabilities or other special needs, and their
families, stand to benefit greatly from the supports and
assistance we, their neighbors and friends, can provide. On
behalf of my colleagues and collaborators affiliated with the
Institute on Community Integration, I encourage you to maintain
and extend this support and service.
American children are twice as
likely to be poor as Canadian children, 3 times as likely to be
poor as British children, 4 times as likely to be poor as French
children, and 7 to 13 times more likely to be poor than German,
Dutch and Swedish children.
Source: Children's Defense Fund,
1994.
Women and men are poor for
different reasons. For women, it’s not just the lack of
livable wage jobs but also child care and health care.
Hannah Rosenthal, Midwest Region
Commissioner,
U.S. Administration for Children and Families.
Shifting Our Investment
in
Early Education and Family Support
Nancy Johnson
Child Care WORKS
As you begin a new year-–just
three years away from the next millennium–-I hope you will
pause to consider what kind of public policies will help support
Minnesota’s families to raise healthy, well-adjusted,
confident and competent children. 186,800 of Minnesota’s
children 0-13 years of age spend more of their childhood in child
care and education programs than they do in public school or at
home with their families. The U.S. has no comprehensive child
care and education policy. Instead, we have a bewildering array
of programming and a patchwork of funding which, while providing
some families with excellent supports, leaves most families
scrambling to piece together affordable care that fits their
needs.
As a nation and as a state, we
have treated parents’ decisions about child care as a
private issue–and yet the consequences from these decisions
affect all of our future. Many people still believe that the
financial responsibility for caring for children should rest
solely with their parents. This view ignores the tremendous
benefits for a society of children who have had the advantages of
good early care and education and the savings from reduced costs
for remedial education, juvenile crime, teen pregnancy,
unemployment, etc.
FACT: In 1994, Minnesota
spent 4 times as much in state funds on corrections and prisons
than on child care and early education.
Six thousand low income working
families are currently on waiting lists for child care sliding
fee subsidies in Minnesota. The program currently serves about
7,000 families out of an estimated 58,000 eligible. A three
person Household with a gross income of $12,981 would begin at
the copayment level of $21 per month. For a family of three whose
income is $32,761, their monthly copayment is $470–the top
of the sliding fee scale. If their child care costs are $800 per
month and they make $32,761 or more, they now pay the full cost.
Against a backdrop of more mothers
–76 per cent – in the paid workforce than ever before,
President Clinton and Congress have redefined motherhood, placing
greater emphasis on a poor mother’s role as
"breadwinner" rather than as "nurturer and
teacher." The federal welfare reform law enacted this past
summer ends the safety net for poor families -–most of whom
are headed by single mothers. Will parents receiving public
assistance be faced with leaving their children in unsafe or
inadequate child care situations in order to work at low paying
jobs –or worse yet, leaving their children home alone?
FACT: In 1994, Minnesota
spent 20 times as much in state funds on highways than on child
care and early education.
What Do We Need?
We need a universal system of
support for child care and education for the healthy development
of all children. The system should provide:
- access to resources for
parents based on financial need
- parent choice to care for
their children themselves or to choose from a range of
program options
- consumer information to help
parents choose the type of care that best meets their
family’s needs
- the resources necessary to
develop a well-prepared and compensated early childhood
workforce, increasing the effectiveness of providers and
reducing provider turnover
- effective regulation to
ensure children’s health, safety and optimum
development.
Brainpower Begins At Birth
Policy makers need to consider the
cost effectiveness of public investment in children not just from
age five for six hours during the school day, but from birth and
throughout the hours that parents are at work. Children’s
mental ability is shaped by early experience. Physical brain
research documents that our brains sprout new branches and grow
heavier in direct response to the types of stimulation sent in by
the environment. Circuits in different regions of the brain
mature at different times. As a result, different circuits are
most sensitive to life’s experiences at different ages
– with particular significance from birth through age ten.
This plasticity of the human brain from birth focuses renewed
significance on the impact that family, teachers/providers, and
their environment have on children’s optimal development. We need a
major shift in our thinking from making the greatest public
investments in education when children are almost adults to
investing in supporting families and early education when the
foundation is being laid.
FACT: In 1994, Minnesota
spent 32 times as much in state funds on higher education than on
child care and early education.
1997 Recommendations For Minnesota Policy
Makers:
Invest in Supports for Working Families
Where to start this shift in
investment? First, Minnesota should fill in the gaps in federal
funding, providing subsidies for all working families who are
eligible for the child care sliding fee program regardless of
whether they come through welfare or low wage jobs.
Invest in Teachers and Providers
Second, Minnesota should invest in
scholarships for early childhood development coursework. We
should also support model professional development programs which
recruit and retain teachers from underrepresented populations and
fund cultural dynamics training for all providers. As more and
more children are cared for by people who are not family members,
the importance of building a foundation of understanding of
cultural strengths and respect for cultural differences is
becoming more critical. Dr. Lily Wong Filmore states that,
"There is almost nothing that a caregiver can do with a
young child that isn’t cultural."
Programs which provide
compensation linked with educational achievement and on-the-job
competency such as mentoring and apprenticeships should be
expanded. Turnover of staff is already high in the field and the
need for additional teachers and providers is expected to
increase dramatically as public assistance recipients enter the
paid workforce. Mentoring can provide a cost effective way to
retain experienced staff and increase the number of competent
teachers and providers, including those choosing to enter the
field through the welfare door.
Invest In Quality Care and Education For All
Children
Minnesota has an opportunity to
lead the country in designing a child care system that ensures
that all children receive quality care and education. The
Effective Child Care Demonstration Project would provide several
demonstration sites with the resources necessary to keep parent
co-payments for child care at 15% of their income while allowing
providers to increase their rates to cover the costs of quality
care and education. This approach will allow researchers to
measure over a three year time period the benefits of a fully
funded, effective child care system for children, parents,
providers, employers, and the cost savings for the whole
community.
Wise policy makers, following a
Native American tradition, need to be looking for how what we do
today will effect the seventh generation. The pace of change in
the information age–in families, jobs, the economy, science,
communication, entertainment– can sometimes feel
overwhelming. We need to keep in front of us a vision of the year
2030 when the children born today will become our nation’s
leaders. What will our legacy to them be? How will the supports
for families and children that we implement today influence the
kind of world they will build? We can’t know the challenges
they will face but we can provide them with a strong foundation
on which to build their dreams. Let’s invest in children
today–for a successful future.
Fifty-one percent of children
on AFDC, and 59 percent of poor children not on welfare, had 10
or more books in 1986 (while 81 percent of non-poor children had
ten or more books).
Source: Nicholas Zill et al,
"The Life Circumstances and
Development of Children in
Welfare Families," C.C.: Child Trends, 1991.
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Winter/Spring 1997,
Volume 24, Issue 1