What's Missing From the Presidential Debates: Children

By: Rochelle Riley | Posted: December 18, 2011 at 4:00 AM

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In her Detroit Free Press column, Rochelle Riley takes aim at GOP presidential candidates for failing to address children during their debates. She says it's critical for the contenders to have plans and ideas about early-childhood education and juvenile justice, among other areas.

They have debated the economy and jobs and how much they feel the president is to blame for everything wrong with America.

But none of the Republican candidates for president in their 1,100 debates has talked enough about how to prepare our children to run America, according to a children's advocacy group that has analyzed their words.

Voices for America's Children reviewed 10 of the GOP debates and studied each of the candidates' websites, looking for plans or ideas in the areas of early childhood education, welfare, juvenile justice, economic security and disabilities.

The group found that just 2% of the debate questions and nearly nothing on the websites dealt directly with issues regarding children.

"The media has yet to raise questions of how candidates will work to improve the health, safety and well-being of America's children and what they propose to do with the $374 billion in federal funding currently directed towards these ends," Charles Bruner, director of the Child and Family Policy Center, said of the review, which he oversaw.

Read Rochelle Riley's entire column at the Detroit Free Press.

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