State of grace: Leave no child behind
___Our New Year's reflection was intensified by the horrific events of Sept. 11, which spurred us to re-examine the kind of families, nation and world we want to build for our children. The State of the Union and the state of the state speeches, at their best, serve as a time of assessment of the year past and of vision for the year ahead.
___Thousands of years ago, rulers marked the anniversaries of their coronations each year. Some scholars believe the 72nd Psalm may have been read upon a ruler's assumption of leadership and on each anniversary as both a prayer and a charge:
___"Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the
people, and deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor."
___Wouldn't it be wonderful if these words were read each year as the president prepares his State of the Union speech and the governors prepare their state of the state speeches? What would it mean if our nation's leaders measured how well our nation is doing by the criteria offered in the psalm?
___Just how well have the president and Congress and governors and mayors been defending the cause of the poor and delivering the needy? Is the gap between the rich and poor widening or narrowing? Are children still poor in the richest nation on Earth? Have we extended health care and hope for all? Is every child given a level playing field through quality care in their early years and excellent schools?
___The president, with overwhelming public support, has led our nation in an all-out effort to crush terrorism as embodied in Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network. What would it take for our nation to wipe out other forces of oppression--to lead the charge to end poverty and homelessness and hunger, to marshal every force at our disposal to defeat the scourge of child abuse and neglect that is reported every 11 seconds in our nation?
___That we are fighting a war on terrorism should not prevent us from seeing and responding to the terror of children in desperate circumstances right here at home.
___Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the midst of World War II asserted, "There is no finer investment for any country than putting milk into babies."
___At a time when America's values have been under attack, what an opportunity we have to show what we stand for as welfare and child care legislation comes up for consideration. Will we make a commitment to just investment to lift out of poverty our nation's 12.4 million poor children--most of whom live in working families? Will we see that every parent who has to work and is unable to afford the high cost of child care will have access to affordable, quality care? Will we assure that every child has the chance to get ready for school and to succeed in school through quality early childhood programs and strong schools?
___Symbols are important. I'm sure that sitting in the balcony next to the first lady during the State of the Union speech will be honored guests who represent the president's priority concerns and commitments. This year, those honored guests are sure to include heroes of the Sept. 11 attack or their loved ones, and rightly so.
___I urge the president also to invite a poor child, a family without health insurance, a hard-working parent on a minimum-wage salary who can't afford a decent place to live and a child whose own neighborhood feels as embattled as Kandahar to symbolize his commitment to leave no child behind.
___But symbols, while important, are not enough; and so I hope in the president's priorities and actions we will see preferential beliefs that those most in need and affected by the downturn in the economy are taken care of first. Budgets are not just economic documents. They are social and moral documents. They reflect what America believes in and for whom it cares.
___So when the pundits and commentators assess the State of the Union and state of the state speeches, I hope they will do so with the wise perspective of the psalmist. Just as more than two millennia ago the prayer for and charge to a ruler measured him by his deliverance of the needy, today we must judge our leaders and all parties not by the elegance of a phrase, the warming surge of patriotic sentiment or polling data, but by their fidelity to defending the cause of those who are vulnerable, especially our children.
___When we ourselves have fulfilled our promise to leave no child behind and held our leaders accountable for doing the same, when we fulfill our sacred stewardship of the children whom God has entrusted to our care and expect our leaders to honor the responsibility for the youngest among us, only then may we say that the state of our union indeed is strong.
___Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children's Defense Fund. Her column is distributed by Religion News Service
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