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Among some children's advocates, enthusiasm has faded for homegrown, experimental approaches. In 1988 Lisbeth Schorr and her husband, National Public Radio's Daniel Schorr, wrote Within Our Reach: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, which enthusiastically described 24 new programs for children. Today half of them are gone, and Schorr has had a change of heart about what such initiatives can accomplish. "Foundations fund innovative programs for several years with the idea that when they work, public funds will pick up the cost and continue the program," she says. "But that hasn't happened for years. It's an illusion. Anything you want to do in an organized way, a big way, needs government funding." Adds Vivien Stewart of the Carnegie Foundation: "In this country we are very good at pilot programs, but we are very bad at scaling up to a point where we can actually turn some of these things around. It can't be done with the resources of small organizations."
Senator Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, could not disagree more. Originator of the "charity tax credit" endorsed by Bob Dole last week, Coats believes "federal programs have almost become an excuse for people not to become personally involved." A tax credit that allows people to support local social initiatives, he contends, would keep both donor and recipient accountable. "If you want to know that your money is really going to make a difference," he asks, "would you rather give $1,000 to Habitat for Humanity or to HUD?" Yet one study that Catholic Charities cited in Senate testimony earlier this year estimates that private giving in the year 2000 would have to be 50 times greater than it has been to replace government support for social services.
The Coats thesis notwithstanding, many of the nonprofit groups that work with children have rallied to Edelman's call. Her Stand for Children has been endorsed by almost 3,000 organizations. Thousands of Girl Scouts are expected to attend, as well as thousands more teachers and members of the ywca and the ymca. The latter group, which serves 17 million children and families, and whose leadership is generally conservative, has gone out of its way to avoid the politics associated with the rally. "We hope not to be sidetracked by who is calling this event," says Y public-policy senior associate John Brooks. "Supporting kids shouldn't be a partisan issue."
Nor, in the final analysis, should it be limited to children in poverty or in crisis. "Any broad-based politics about family issues is going to have to engage parents as citizens and as actors, not simply as objects of attention," says Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard, who believes Edelman must inspire "the missing middle," the working parents stressed out by juggling work and family. One reason why children's issues are likely to become a prominent campaign issue is that both parties are working hard to attract blue-collar mothers. "Women are more likely to vote the family issues and want to be sure children get the right start," says Stanley Greenberg, pollster for the Democratic National Committee.
Politicians are not invited on Saturday, though. They would only obscure what Edelman, a veteran of many marches, sees as this event's main goal: to inspire the heady awareness--found in the civil rights campaigns and the antiwar movement--that individuals can change the world.