I Am So Proud - Not! Shame On Us!

Hello--

This is Josh Nelson with the Hatcher Group writing on behalf of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. I wanted to let you know about our release today of the 2009 Kids Count Data Book. The Kids Count Data Book provides the most credible data on child well–being and is the only source that measures national and state-by-state trends on a wide range of indicators. The Annie E. Casey Foundation feels strongly that good data is the foundation of good policy. The types of indicators we track include infant mortality rate, teen birth rate, high school dropout rate and child poverty rate.

I thought you’d be particularly interested in our Louisiana-specific data:

State Fact Profile.

State Fact Sheets.

There are a number of opportunities to blog on this, and I hope you will consider doing so. If so, please consider the following:

The Embeddable Widget

The 2009 Essay, Counting What Counts, Taking Results Seriously for Vulnerable Children and Families:

Louisiana ranks 49th nationally in a new state-by-state study on the well-being of America's children. The 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Book reveals that since 2000, Louisiana improved on four of the 10 measures affecting child well-being. Yet on five other measures, conditions worsened for Louisiana's kids, and on one measure conditions remained unchanged. The 20th annual Data Book also contains the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s essay, which focuses on the country’s progress in keeping track of children’s well-being.

This year’s Data Book is complemented by the expanded KIDS COUNT Data Center, an online interactive database that contains hundreds of measures of child well-being covering national, state, county, and city information. To access information for Louisiana go to datacenter.kidscount.org/la.

Louisiana ranks in the bottom 10 on nine of 10 indicators. Nationally, Louisiana ranked 49th on six key measures of child well-being, including the percent of low-birthweight babies, the infant mortality rate, the percent of teens ages 16 to 19 who are not in school and not working, the percent of children without secure parental employment, the percent of children in poverty, and the percent of children in single-parent families.

In terms of key findings nationally, there were:

* Six areas of improvement: infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, teen birth rate, high school dropout rate, and rate of teens not in school and not working;

* Four areas have worsened: low-birthweight babies, children living in families where no parent has full-time year-round employment, children in poverty, and children in single parent families.

If you would like a copy of the press release, or have any questions whatsoever about this, please let me know. Additionally, be sure to send me the link to anything you write on this, so we can include it in our outreach to other bloggers and journalists as appropriate.

Thank you for your time.

Josh, I'm pleased to blog this information, but, at the same time, I'm quite ashamed of the statistics on my state. Our politicians blather on and on about family values, but it seems obvious that they don't care much about the children of the families in Louisiana.

It's more of the same old, same old, near the bottom in the good stuff, and near the top in the bad stuff. Why don't the politicians do something about this, and why don't the people of Louisiana press them to do more for the good of the children of the state? Is it that we don't care? If so, shame on us.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the Kids Count Databook of the Annie E. Casey Foundation where you can find information on your own state.