LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas outperformed only two states in a national survey of children’s wellbeing, slipping one place from its 47th place ranking in 2009.
The 2010 Kids Count Data Book, released today by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, ranks all 50 states on 10 equally weighted educational, economic and health criteria. Nationwide progress outpaced Arkansas’ improvement in several key areas. Only Louisiana and Mississippi fared worse on the report than Arkansas, which has ranked 44th or lower for the past five years.
“We’re going to get left behind if we don’t try to stay up with the progress that’s being made,” said Paul Kelly, senior policy analyst at Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
The rankings were based on 2007 and 2008 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the U.S. Vital Statistics System, the most recent data available.
Arkansas has improved in five areas since 2000: infant mortality rate, child death rate, teenage death rate, teenage birth-rate and the percentage of teenagers without high school degrees who are not in school.
The state fared worse in low infant birth weights and the number of children in single-parent families.
Two categories couldn’t be compared from 2000 to 2008 because of changes in how the Census Bureau gathers employment data - the number of teenagers not attending school or working, and children whose parents don’t have full-time employment.
The state saw no change in the percentage of children living in poverty, which was 25 percent in both 2000 and 2008. The federal poverty level for a two-parent family with two children was a household income of $21,834 in 2008.
The report’s administrators called the poverty level percentage a hopeful sign for the state, noting that Arkansas held ground while many other states lost. The measure grew nationwide from 17 percent to 18 percent between 2000 and 2008.
“That may be a sign that Arkansas will fare better through the recession,” said Laura Beavers, Kids Count director at the Casey Foundation.
Most of the indicators provide a snapshot of the country before the national economic crisis squelched state revenue across the country and strained household budgets, Casey Foundation President Patrick McCarthy said in a conference call with reporters.
He expects the report’s indicators to worsen as statistics from 2009 and 2010 factor into future rankings.
“Low-income families have suffered the most from the social and economic consequences of the downturn,” McCarthy said. “Many of these families have literally been forced off the path to opportunity and economic success, and they face truly daunting challenges in the coming years.”
On the other hand, states that are able to maintain programs targeted at health care and education despite dwindling budgets may be able to improve their standings as unemployment and consumer spending rebound, Beaver said.
Arkansas is one of four states - including Alaska, Montana and North Dakota - that are not projected to run short of revenue in fiscal 2011 by the Washington based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Gov. Mike Beebe said this month.
“We think we’ve been able to put some money in some places that can make a big difference,” Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said.
The state closed fiscal 2010, which ended June 30, with $130 million less revenue than fiscal 2009. Beebe made three midyear budget cuts totaling $246.9 million.
Arkansas law protects kindergarten through 12th grade education funding, which the report’s creators called an important factor. Act 108 of the Second Extraordinary Session of 2003 mandates that when revenue falls short that education funding be maintained, even at the expense of funding for other state programs, such as Medicaid, prisons and higher education.
The Kids Count data predates the 2009 passage of a tobacco tax increase designed to fund a variety of health-related programs in Arkansas, including a statewide trauma system, DeCample noted. The system - expected to be operational in two years - will ensure that trauma patients are transported to the facility that can best address their condition.
Dr. Gary Wheeler, associate director of the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care and pediatrics professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, pointed to the trauma system, a graduated driver’s license program and laws prohibiting text messages while driving as key to reducing teenage and child death rates. Seventy percent of teenage deaths are attributed to vehicle accidents, he said.
“We’ve got some big new initiatives, but we won’t see the effect right away,” Wheeler said.
Federal health care reform, expect to help insure 90 percent of Arkansas’ uninsured, should help shore up other health indicators, he said.
Arkansas’ highest ranking was 37th in infant mortality rates.
While 8.4 of every 1,000 live births in the state ended in death in 2000, that number dropped to 7.7 in 2007. The U.S. infant mortality rate was 6.7 of 1,000 live births in 2007.
Wheeler attributed the improvement to a program that transports rural mothers with high-risk pregnancies to Little Rock to deliver their babies, along with continuing education in high-risk pregnancies and births for rural doctors.
Arkansas ranked 50th in percent of teenagers ages 16 to 19 not working and not attending school, at 12 percent in 2008 compared with 8 percent nationwide.
Kelly, with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, advocated increased workforce education and after-school programming to bring that percentage down.
Department of Education Spokesman Julie Johnson Thompson said the state plans to test a dropout prevention program in a few districts, with plans to later implement it statewide. The system will use data to predict which students are at risk, allowing districts to intervene earlier.
“Sometimes kids say, ‘Hey, I’m dropping out of school,’ but a lot of times, they just fade away,” Thompson said.
The state’s application for $175 million in federal Race to the Top grant funding includes plans to track prekindergarten students’ educational outcomes to make the system more effective. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is expected to announce the second round of grant finalists today.
The report’s administrators said states clustered at the lower end of the 21-year old report’s rankings - most of them poor, rural Southern states - tend to struggle to progress, trading places year after year. Most of the report’s indicators are intertwined, they said, making it difficult to bring change.
Wheeler is hopeful that newer measures already in place will yield positive results.
“Pick up the phone and call anyone in any sort of leadership position in the state,” he said.
“They will tell you that they know where we are, and they are working overtime to try to move us in the right direction.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/27/2010