Outrage. It's the only plausible reaction to the plight of foster children as depicted by ABC in the last several weeks. In a series of news shows, the network portrayed children yearning for permanent, loving families, while growing up in foster care. They had experienced horrific abuse or neglect and were still feeling the trauma of broken promises and repeated moves from one foster home or institution to another. These intimate portrayals have led some to charge that ABC crossed a line, violating the privacy of the youngsters profiled.

But if that is the chief response to the ABC coverage, then Americans are guilty of violating something else — the responsibility we have to care for these children. Foster care is a vital lifeboat when children are unsafe in their own homes, but too many of those boats drift aimlessly rather than head quickly to the safe shore of a family. As a result, many foster children lead lives of constant upheaval, moving from placement to placement. This turbulence and isolation undermines children's healthy development and follows them into adulthood.

Our work as co-chairs of the nonpartisan Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care introduced us to many children whose lives were as tragic as those profiled by ABC. They compel us to act. Our commission included some of the nation's most innovative child welfare administrators, judges, scholars and advocates. It included foster and adoptive parents, guardians, and a young woman who grew up in foster care. We came together and focused on the simple principle that every child needs a safe, permanent family.

Our recommendations were directed to two major sources of foster care drift. The first are the courts, which have the authority to place children in foster care and the responsibility to monitor their progress toward safe, permanent homes.

The second is the federal government, which created and administers a misdirected financing system that encourages states to place and keep children in foster care rather than keeping families safely together or in securing safe, loving homes with adoptive parents or legal guardians.

This year, Congress and most of the nation's state courts adopted many of the Pew Commission's recommendations related to the courts. As a result, judges will soon have better information about the cases before them, more training in how to address the needs of the children before their courts, and tough requirements to work closely and collaboratively with child welfare officials.

Still remaining is the significant challenge of fixing a broken financing system. The Pew Commission has proposed recommendations that would maintain the federal government's guarantee of a safety net while also giving states financial incentives and greater freedom to use federal foster care dollars to tailor their services. States might use some of these dollars to subsidize a relative who gives a child a permanent home through legal guardianship. They might use them to help a family stay safely together or help adoptive parents settle a new child into their family.

Although our proposals include new federal dollars, they are more about redirecting existing dollars in ways that increase children's chances of leaving foster care for a safe, permanent home. The commission also recommended better ways for the federal government to monitor states' progress in serving children in foster care.

Placing a child in foster care involves more than removing her from a dangerous home. It's a promise to protect her and get her quickly to a safe, permanent family.

As a nation, we're late in keeping that promise to the children in foster care. That's an outrage we can do something about.

Former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., and former Rep. Bill Gray, D-Pa., are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care.