COLUMBUS, Ohio – African-American children in Ohio are near the bottom in a national study examining the chances of success for American children
The Kids Count policy report, released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, underscores a continuing racial gap separating white and Asian children from black, Latino and Native American children, who face barriers to success.
“This report puts in stark numbers what we already know in Ohio: that many of our most vulnerable children are falling further and further behind,” Sarah Biehl, policy director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio, said.
Ohio’s black children scored among the lowest in the nation on the foundation’s Race for Results index: 274 on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Only five states — Wisconsin, Mississippi, Michigan, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had lower composite scores, said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Casey Foundation.
The state’s Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander children fared higher than the national average, but the chances for success among Ohio’s white children were subpar: 674 out of 1,000 compared to 704 nationally.
The report compares how children are progressing on key milestones across racial and ethnic groups at the national and state level, based on 12 indicators that measure a child’s success from birth to adulthood. The Casey foundation hopes the data will lead to policies that will close the racial gap.
The foundation says children of color will represent the majority of children in the U.S. by 2018.