If you follow Voices for Children in Nebraska, you undoubtedly hear a lot about the Kids Count in Nebraska Report, but you may not know much about the national report. Next week will mark the release of the 26th edition of the National KIDS COUNT Data Book. The National Data Book takes data from all 50 states, compares states, and provides a ranking. This report can easily tell us how Nebraska is doing when compared to other states in the same year, or similarly to Kids Count in Nebraska, tells us how we have improved or worsened in several different areas The 2015 National KIDS COUNT Data Book will be released Tuesday, July 21, and until then we cannot tell you how Nebraska did this year. We can however, review how we did last year and talk about what is included in the report. The Data Book presents the latest trends in four categories:
- Economic Well-Being
- Education
- Health
- Family and Community
Each of these categories includes 4 indicators, captures the latest trends in child well-being and provides a state ranking on child well-being in each category.
Stay tuned next Tuesday for this year’s rankings.
In last year’s KIDS COUNT Data Book, Nebraska did well ranking 10th in the country for Overall Child Well-Being, but dropped in rank in 3 of the 4 categories from 2013. Nebraska ranked 5th in Economic Well-Being, 24th in Health, 9th in Education and 20th in Family and Community. Be sure to check with Voices for Children on Tuesday for the release of this year’s rankings and the KIDS COUNT Data Book!
Comment(1)-
ExcelinEd says
July 15, 2015 at 10:26 amThis post raises an important issue, thank you for sharing. Have you heard about http://www.WhyProficiencyMatters.com? Another important issue every parent should know about as it will impact their child. Being proficient means a student has demonstrated mastery of a subject (such as reading or math) at a specific level. However, proficiency expectations vary from state-to-state and differ widely from the nationally and internationally recognized National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) proficiency expectations. This discrepancy in expectations is called a “proficiency gap.” States with large proficiency gaps are setting the bar too low, leading parents and teachers to believe students are performing better than they actually are. States must raise their proficiency expectations if they hope to create an education system where every child has the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful in the next grade – and most importantly – after high school. Find out more at http://bit.ly/ProficiencyMatters.