SHARE:
Editor's Page
Less than a month later, their words were given statistical resonance. The 1996 Kids Count Data Book, a national project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation based in Baltimore, ranked Florida a disgraceful 48th in the nation on a composite of 10 indicators of child health and well-being. Only Mississippi, Louisiana and the District of Columbia treat their children worse.
It's a report with frightening consequences, especially since there is a clear correlation between Florida's one million poor or nearly poor children and the state's increasingly violent young criminal population. As the accompanying chart shows, the explosive growth in the number of teenagers coming in the next decade leaves us with only two alternatives: build ever-more prison cells or radically reform our policies on children.
Right now, the Legislature obviously favors the former, short-term course of action. For example, consider its financial hocus-pocus in the last session. Members triumphantly boasted how they increased education funding for "our children" by $631 million without raising taxes. What they didn't say is that about half of that funding came from cuts in the budget of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services ? the very programs aimed at helping the state's poorest kids. The legislators are playing a dangerous zero-sum game with us for their own selfish reasons. So who can citizens turn to for leadership on the youth crisis? As Chiles made clear in his Council of 100 remarks, the responsibility has fallen on the business community, particularly the major institutions. Business people understand what Florida's poor image does to their companies and to the economy as a whole. They hear the criticism and amazement voiced by peers from other parts of the country, and they feel the shame of operating in a society which ignores its weakest citizens. Finally, they understand the inevitable violent consequences of this neglect and the immediacy of the crisis.
"Certainly the business community needs to take the leadership role, because the government bureaucracy can't seem to respond quickly," says Charles E. Rice, CEO of Barnett Banks. In partnership with Publix Super Markets, and with financial pledges from several other major Florida corporations ? CSX Transportation, Knight-Ridder, Outback Steakhouse, Florida Progress ? Barnett formed a new foundation called "Take Stock In Children," which focuses on making educational opportunities available to at-risk children. Based on a successful Pinellas County model, the foundation (with $3 million in seed money) promises four years of college tuition to kids as early as third grade if they stay out of trouble, away from drugs, and maintain good grades.
It's a measure of the changing perspective on children that in seeking the most authoritative source for data on children at risk, Barnett turned to the Tallahassee-based Florida Center for Children & Youth, an organization once thought extreme because of its dire predictions. "I can't imagine a better business to knock on our door than the dominant banking institutions in the state," says Jack Levine, executive director of the center.
Says Levine about politicians: "For years I thought if we gave them the right information in a digestible form, they'd see the light. With few exceptions, we were naive." As for his new business relationship: "The very thing we've been saying about kids, business says about its products: You've got to invest for the longer term."
