Children and Education

During the early 1970s, Senator Mondale spearheaded innovative and progressive approaches to child poverty. It was a time in which childhood development and family issues received little attention from the government or the press. It was also a time of social revolution as increasing numbers of women began to join the workforce. Senator Mondale was convinced of the need for a comprehensive strategy to improve the lives and futures of disadvantaged children and to strengthen the family. Key legislation authored by Mondale was vetoed by President Nixon, the result of backlash from social conservatives who opposed governmental interference in the family, combined with ambivalence towards the issue of working women and fear that the legislation was threatening the authority of the family.[1] Congress did not grapple with the issue of child poverty for another twenty years. "We lost a generation," wrote Mondale in The Good Fight, "and it breaks my heart."[2]

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Children and Youth, Senator Mondale presided over landmark hearings: Youth Crisis Services; Child Abuse Prevention; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; American Families: Trends and Pressures; and Child and Family Services. In 1974 he observed that "before and since the Subcommittee was established, I have probably devoted more of my time in the Senate to the problems of children than to any other area. I have visited migrant labor camps, Indian reservations, urban slums, and depressed rural areas. I have learned that there are many subtle ways to mutilate the spirit of a child—by depriving him or her of adequate nutrition, or health care, or of a good education."[3]

Senator Mondale's first major legislation in the area of early childhood education was S. 1512, the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971. The Act was built upon the success of Head Start, but extended services to children from families above the poverty level: "It is designed to assure that every child has a fair opportunity to reach his full potential."[4] Six days of hearings were held in which numerous witnesses attested to the benefits of Head Start and the need for more comprehensive and stimulating day care environments. At one point in the hearings, Senator Mondale expresses his frustration with the lack of financial support for early childhood programs: "Yesterday [May 25, 1971], if I understood correctly, we voted what probably amounts to at least a half billion dollars to pay poor children to go into combat and risk their lives. I voted against that because I thought it was blood money, and I think only poor kids can see that as an exciting alternative. Yet, here we are today 6 years after Headstart started, spending only $360 million for all of the preschool developmental systems for all of the children of this country."[5] Despite passing both the House and the Senate, Senator Mondale's bill was vetoed by President Nixon. In response, Senator Mondale called the President's veto, "a totally indefensible action" and "among the most irresponsible statements which I have encountered in 15 years of public life."[6]

"I was not about to give up on the issue—I just knew we had to be smarter about it."[7] Mondale worked to deflect conservative attacks by changing the language of the bill—e.g. dropping comprehensive from the title, which critics had used to argue that the bill was proposing a "Big Brother" intrusion in the family, and using the word voluntary when talking about the bill to make it clear that it was intended to help families, not provide a government substitute for them. The new bill, entitled the Child and Family Services Act of 1972, passed the Senate in 1973. It passed the Senate again in 1975 as the Child and Family Services Act of 1974. However, the bill failed to pass the House both times. Senator Mondale speaks of this failure in his memoir The Good Fight:

We tried to ease . . . tensions for working mothers, while seeking to help the millions of young children who are denied the stimulation and emotional support all children need. We passed that legislation in the Senate three times, and it's an enduring frustration to me that it never became law. . . . My frustration is that we missed two decades of opportunity and lost a generation of children who grew up in poverty. I don't say my bill would have worked perfectly. . . But I believe we could have made a big difference in the way life starts for millions of kids, and I think we'd all have felt better about it. It would have given us a generation in which, for the first time, everyone had an equal chance in America.[8]

Senator Mondale was the key author of the "Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974," the first federal legislation to prevent child abuse. He worked tirelessly to bring awareness to issues from which many legislators, as well as the public, were inclined to look away: "It is time to reexamine our past efforts to prevent, identify and treat child abuse. It is time to figure out where we have gone wrong for once and for all to put an end to the tragic accounts that temporarily jolt us from our newspaper or television sets, before we file them away somewhere in the corner of our minds so we don't have to think about them."[9]

Senator Mondale was also a strong proponent for secondary and higher education: "What will be the ultimate cost to the individual and to the society of the unrealized potential of millions of undereducated children and adults; of years of inequality of education, social, and economic opportunity; of neglected dropouts; of poorly prepared teachers; of alienated youth? Quality education is truly an investment and not an expense."[10]

Throughout his Senate career, Senator Mondale introduced and supported legislation that provided financial assistance for eligible students. When introducing the Student Assistance Act of 1969, Senator Mondale argued that "because these 'working poor' live their lives in incessant struggle so quietly, they are sometimes called the 'forgotten Americans.' It is time that they be forgotten no longer. Many of these parents dream of sending their children to college. Some, through fantastic sacrifice, are able to do so. Most are not. It is time this Nation do something to help them realize their dreams."[11]