Yesterday, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the report Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for all Children. The report highlights the ongoing disparities in health, education, development, and family economics by creating an index to compare children of different races’ opportunities. 12 indicators were selected by the Casey foundation in an effort to capture the complex set of factors that influence a child’s success.
These indicators were selected based on research and key pieces of data that bear heavily on the likelihood of a young person becoming middle class by middle age. The 12 indicators featured in the report are:
- Babies born at normal birthweight
- Children ages 3 to 5 enrolled in nursery school, preschool or kindergarten
- Fourth graders who scored at or above proficient in reading
- Eighth graders who scored at or above proficient in math
- Females aged 15 to 19 who delay childbearing until adulthood
- High school students graduating on time
- Young adults aged 19 to 26 who are in school or working
- Young adults aged 25 to 29 who have completed an associate’s decree or higher
- Children who live with a householder who has at least a high school diploma
- Children who live in two-parent families
- Children who live in families with incomes at or above 200% of poverty
- Children who live in low-poverty areas (poverty <205)
These 12 indicators were then collected by race, in mutually exclusive groups: African American, American Indian, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latino and White. Unfortunately, based on data availability, there is no data available for children of 2 or more races. Nebraska’s population of American Indian children is too small, so no state data is available for this group.
After the indicators were identified and data was collected, each racial group in each state received a score. Nebraska’s scores identified disparities based on race – especially for kids who are African-American or Latino. A score of 1,000 is perfect, and even though no group comes close to perfect, there are huge discrepancies between races. Nebraska’s scores for each group can be seen in the chart below:
From the data we can see that each racial group, except those who are white, are doing worse in Nebraska than the national average. For data on each specific indicator, check out the Kids Count Data Center.
The finding from the Race for Results report beg the question of why and what can be done to reverse this trend? Voices for Children will attempt to answer those questions at our upcoming event. Please check it out and register for more information or to get involved.
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