California is doing slightly amend by its kids but however has a long way to go, ranking 41st out of fifty states in the overall well-being of children. The 2012 Kids Count written report, released today by the Annie East. Casey Foundation, measures how well children are faring on xvi dissimilar indicators in education, economical well-being, health, and family and community.

California showed improvements in 10 of the 16 categories, including instruction. The brightest spot is health, where it ranked 23rd, primarily due to good

2012 Kids Count: California measures of kid well-being. Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation. (click to overstate)

prenatal care and increasing numbers of children with health insurance. Just despite some improvements in other categories, the country was near the bottom everywhere else, ranking 42nd in family and community, 43rd in education, and 45th in economic well-being.

"This report shows California is continuing to sell children curt," said Ted Lempert, President of the Oakland-based Children Now, in a written argument.

Last year, California came in at 16thursday nationwide, mostly on the strength of health bug, but the Casey Foundation revamped its formula this twelvemonth to give greater weight to education and some economic factors. "When they shored upwardly those indicators, we collapsed," Lempert told EdSource.

California did improve a footling in education. The number of children who are non adept in reading by fourth course roughshod from 79 per centum in 2005 to 75 percent in 2011, and the number of eighth grade students not proficient in math dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent. The high schoolhouse graduation rate too rose a bit.

"I'g going to celebrate the proficient news," said Lempert, acknowledging that beingness in the bottom x is troubling. "Nosotros've been hovering a little lower than that, so it'southward neat that nosotros're climbing a picayune, but that trend needs to become up really dramatically, and manifestly there' s a concern that nosotros'd exist going in the other direction."

National picture mixed

Virtually every state showed some improvements in education and health, but, due to the recession, the results were most universally dismal for economic well-being.

Kids Count: National trends in economic well-being. Source: Annie East. Casey Foundation. (Click to enlarge)

  • 1 out of every three children has no parent working full-fourth dimension, year circular.
  • 41 per centum of children alive in families that spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.  California is dead final in this category at more than 50 pct.
  • Nearly 15.8 one thousand thousand children are living in poverty, an increase of 2.5 million since 2005.

"This is especially troubling considering growing up in poverty is one of the greatest threats to salubrious kid development," said Laura Speer, the national coordinator for Kids Count at the Casey Foundation.  "It tin really affect everything from their cognitive development and their ability to learn, to their social and emotional evolution and their overall health."

The impact of the recession has unduly striking children of colour.  Native American and African American children are almost twice as likely as white children to be living in families where their parents don't have a steady job.

The racial divide in teaching is almost as pronounced.  "We should all be very troubled to learn that well more than one-half, 58 per centum, of white 4th graders had yet to reach reading proficiency in 2011, yet the numbers for their Latino, African American and American Indian classmates were even worse, with more than 80 pct unable to read well by the time they entered fourth course," said Casey Foundation President and CEO Patrick McCarthy.

2012 Kids Count- reading proficiency by race. Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation. (click to enlarge).

California's gap is about identical.  Even though scores increased by a few pct points, more than fourscore percent of African American fourth graders and 88 percent of Latino fourth graders scored below proficient in reading compared to 60 percent of white students.

Cuts may brand information out-of-engagement

The budget cuts and dubiousness surrounding California's revenues may have already begun to lower the state'south ranking.  Final month, the Legislature approved a bill advocated by Gov. Jerry Brown to eliminate the state's Healthy Families insurance program that serves 900,000 low-income children and their families and shift them into the state's Medi-Cal arrangement.  Brown said the move would save almost $13 million this yr.

Lawmakers and the Governor have promised that they'll brand every endeavour to ensure that all eligible kids remain covered.  Children Now'due south Lempert said advocates are working hard to make the transfer smooth, but there could be losses, and not just in numbers.  "The guarantee is that none of those kids will totally driblet off," he said, but "the quality might non be as strong."

The state-funded preschool plan is already losing enrollment.  Co-ordinate to Kids Count, 52 percent of young children in California don't nourish preschool, 1 percent over the national average.  Only cutbacks over the last ii years accept eliminated between x,000 and 20,000 slots.

For this year, lawmakers rejected most of Brownish's harshest cuts, but did agree to reduce part-day preschool by $30 million and, for the showtime time, impose a sliding scale fee for parents with children in the part-solar day program.

Scott Moore, senior policy adviser for Preschool California, said those changes could double the number of lost slots for depression-income children over two years, despite years of neural scientific discipline inquiry showing that children who attend high quality early babyhood education programs are more likely to succeed in school and in life.

There is no hole-and-corner sauce required to improve children's well-existence.  "We actually know what it takes for children to thrive," said Casey president McCarthy, citing three key factors:

  • Building a path out of poverty by investing in simultaneously in improving parents' economic picture and in children'due south healthy development and educational success;
  • Helping families and so they tin can provide permanent, stable and nurturing homes;
  • Helping to meliorate communities.

The largest obstacle is what McCarthy calls the "persistent paralysis of our electric current political civilisation."  He said that the way to go legislative action is past finding common ground.

Right now, the "political will for children is disaggregated," agreed Lempert.  Advocacy groups need to come out of their silos and work together similar they did to improve prenatal and infant care.

"The state made it a priority and it fabricated a departure," Lempert said.  "We need to exercise that in didactics and early pedagogy and say we're going to make ourselves one of the top states in education, and we're going to stick with it until we are."

Kathryn Baron is senior reporter atEdSource Today.  Contact Kathryn Baron.

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