The environment in which Texas children grow up is crucial to their future and to the future of the state. Almost 500,000 Texas families were poor in 1985. Poverty sets the stage for numerous childhood maladies: infant mortality, health problems, child abuse, learning disabilities, malnutrition, and mental health problems. As poor children grow up they are likely to drop out of school, become pregnant at an early age, abuse drugs and alcohol, depend on public assistance, or break the law. Many of these problems are preventable. It costs less than $39,000 to provide one child with a continuum of preventive services beginning with prenatal and preventive health care and continuing with Head Start, Chapter I Compensatory Education, summer jobs for high school students, and four years of college paid at public expense. Contrast that with the $25,000 it costs each year to keep one juvenile offender in a Texas training school. Prevention is more cost-effective than remedial treatment. Child abuse is likely to increase in the next decade due to the significant number of families living below the poverty line. Due to limited funding less than one-half of serious child abuse cases in the past 6 years were investigated. When abused and troubled children become parents, they tend to perpetuate self-destructive conditions with their own children. Early intervention could break this cycle. Enacting legislation that focuses on prevention is one way of strengthening the commitment to the positive growth and development of Texas children. (ABL)