I. Introduction by Marian Wright Edelman and video.
II. One-minute opening statements.
III. "Lightening" round--responses of "30 seconds or less than a minute" to question on the war.
IV. First round of questions and follow ups from the panelists.
V. Second round of questions and follow ups from the panelists.
VI. "Lightening" round--question on affirmative action.
VII. One-minute closing statements.

Transcript (I)
FROM THE CDF TRANSCRIPT

 MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Good evening. I'm Marian Wright Edelman, and president of the Children's Defense Fund, and I want to welcome you to the Children's Defense Fund's 2003 National Conference and to this Presidential Candidates Forum on Children on the 30th Anniversary Celebration of our beginning. I want to thank each of the candidates for agreeing to come and tell us what they will do if they become president to make sure that children are not left behind in our rich and powerful nation.

The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to leave no child behind, and to ensure every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. We agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, who was killed opposing Hitler's Holocaust, that "The test of morality of a society is how it treats its children." Well, America is not passing Bonhoeffer's test when we let a child be neglected or abused every 36 seconds; when we let a child be born into poverty every 41 seconds in the richest nation on earth; when we let a child be born without health insurance every 59 seconds. We have 5.2 million uninsured children, 90 percent of them live in working families. We're not meeting Bonhoeffer's test of morality and of common sense and cost effective investment, when we let millions of our children start school not ready to learn, and millions of our children be in schools that are not teaching them to learn and to grow, and to be able to get a good job, and to form the next generation of families.

And as our nation is preoccupied with the war against Iraq, and is anxious and fearful about terrorism at home, I think it is not right that the Bush Administration and the House and Congress have been debating a budget, and indeed have passed budgets, which they will make some final decisions on shortly, that leave no millionaire behind, but leave millions of children behind. Just the tax dividend portion alone of the new 2003 proposed Bush Administration tax cut would pay for a Head Start for every needy eligible child and would pay for health coverage for every uninsured child. It is not right to be dismantling Head Start, to be dismantling child health services under Medicaid, to be taking away foster care protections, to be dismantling Section 8 housing in order to subsidize lavish tax cuts for millionaires. We must say "no" to these priorities.

So it's time for new voices for new choices in our nation--choices that help children first rather than hurt children first. And it isn't enough just to stop bad things from happening, because as we look at these figures, as we said at the beginning, we have got to make sure that all of our children get what they need. God did not make two classes of children, and every single child has a right to health care and a good education, and that's why we are supporting the comprehensive Dodd-Miller Act to Leave No Child Behind. This act is not to be confused with the single issue, under-funded Bush Administration No Child Left Behind Act. They are different, and we must make people aware of this fact. Our act wants to give every child health care. We set a goal and a vision of ending child poverty, of seeing that every child has education, and over the next five to seven years, I hope that will be a reality to ensure that no child truly is left behind in our great nation.

Our children can't vote, and they can't lobby, but many of them sure do know how to speak for themselves. So I want you all to listen carefully to what children have to say about leaders and power and the qualities that a president should demonstrate. Adults and leaders can learn a lot from these fourth graders at Cotswold Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

(Video shown)

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: And now, I want to turn the forum over to our moderator for the evening, CNN's Judy Woodruff.

Thanks, Judy. (Applause)