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Nationally, the news in the 18th annual "Kids Count'' survey is a mixed bag. The nation saw progress in four of the 10 measures compiled by the widely-respected Annie E. Casey Foundation, slight improvement in two more, backsliding in four others. The data for Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana provided little cause for joy. In the overall rankings, Ohio scored best among the three in the Kids Count assessment and was rated 28th best among the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. It was followed regionally by Indiana at 31st and Kentucky at a dismal 40th. To be sure, any such ranking system has its limitations, and this one doesn't pretend to be an encyclopedic assessment. But the Kids Count reports have the attraction of offering a data collection system that is stable from year to year and from state to state. One of the more striking national patterns in the new report is the difference between North and South. In terms of overall rankings, for example, the worst performing states are in a contiguous band that starts with West Virginia and Kentucky and spreads through the South and Southeast (excepting Florida and Texas) and extending west through New Mexico. The states with the best scores are mostly rural and are concentrated in New England and the upper Midwest. Regionally, the report offers little to cheer about: Ohio improved on just three of the 10 measures between 2000 and 2005 (the most recent year for which data is presented in the study). Most troubling are the economic indicators. The percentage of children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment rose by 13 percent over the five-year period, while the child poverty rate increased 19 percent. Here's another move in the wrong direction: Nationally, the percentage of teens who are neither in school nor working fell from 9 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2005, while Ohio went from a better than average 7 percent to 8 percent. Perhaps the best that can be said about Kentucky's evaluation is that the commonwealth's overall ranking moved it ahead of two other states. That, alas, reflects even worse slippage in those states rather than progress on Kentucky's part. Kentucky ranked among the 10 worst states in the nation on measures of children living in poverty, children living with parents who did not have secure year-round employment, teens who weren't working or in school, and in the teen death rate. The first of these pretty much tells the tale. Nationally, 19 percent of all children lived in poverty during 2005. In Kentucky, the figure was 22 percent - unchanged between 2000 and 2005. In Indiana, the most worrisome trend in the report is the rapid increase in child poverty. It rose at nearly twice the rate of the nation as a whole, to 17 percent. That's still better than the national average, but movement in the wrong direction. It's also notable that Indiana has seen a 12 percent increase in children born into single-parent households (to 39 percent of all births in 2004). There is no single policy initiative that could improve child welfare across the board in a short period of time, though there isn't much that wouldn't be helped by improved economic conditions. This doesn't mean we should be complacent. It means quite the opposite. Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, got the perspective about right, we think, in remarks reported by the Associated Press. "The overall picture should still be a source of concern for Kentuckians,'' he said. "We, as a state, would not tolerate ranking 40th in the nation in business or basketball and we can't tolerate ranking 40th in the nation for children.'' We simply must do better by our children. |
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