A very thoughtful comment on my entry on the Times' magazine piece critiqued it for not giving enough ink to what happens to children from birth on. The writer urged me to read a summary of the 1994 "Starting Points" report from the Carnegie Corp. I did and doing so got my reporterly juices flowing. The report noted that, relative to other developed countries, the U.S. was doing a poor job of providing prenatal care and high quality child care, and was seeing a rise in the number of children living in poverty. The report also said children were growing up with little attention from parents and in single-parent homes, due to divorce and a rise in births to unmarried mothers. The commenter suggested that journalists should be asking: "What Early Intervention Programs have been put into place as a result of
that report? Where are they? What follow-up studies have been done? How has
the Federal Government responded to the report? Is the US still lagging far
behind other industrialized nations in addressing this issue? This is the
true SHAME of our society. Those who analyze test scores never get the
point. The cycle of poverty puts generations at risk before they even enter
this world."

Just in November the government reported that 38% of births are to unwed mothers, an all-time record and twice the percentage it was in the 1980s.