An Overview of the State of America's Children 2011
The Need for a Level Playing Field for All Children
Children's Defense Fund
July 2011
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-americas-2011.pdf

[moderator: This "Overview" is an excerpt of the full
report which can be at the above link]

CDF's State of America's Children 2011 paints a
devastating portrait of childhood across the country.
With unemployment, housing foreclosures and hunger still
at historically high levels, children's well-being is in
great jeopardy. Children today are our poorest age
group. Child poverty increased by almost 10 percent
between 2008 and 2009, which was the largest single year
increase since data were first collected. As the country
struggles to climb out of the recession, our children
are falling further behind.

Looking at data1 across children's needs in child
poverty, family structure, family income, child health,
child nutrition, early childhood development, education,
child abuse and neglect, juvenile justice and gun
violence shows millions of children from birth through
the teen years at risk of getting caught in the Cradle
to Prison Pipeline crisis at the intersection of race
and poverty that threatens the futures of poor children
of color across our nation. Black children are facing
the worse crisis since slavery, and in many areas,
Hispanic and American Indian children are not far
behind.

Particularly striking is the fact that children of color
in America who now constitute almost 45 percent of all
children will be the majority of children in 2019-just
eight years from now. We will be counting on them as the
economic drivers of the future, who will be raising
their own families, assisting their parents and
investing in the economy and in Social Security to keep
us all thriving. Yet nearly 80 percent or more of Black
and Hispanic public school students cannot read or do
math at grade level in fourth, eighth and 12th grades,
sentencing them to social and economic death in this
globalizing competitive economy. We must level the
playing field and invest in education now so all
children can achieve to ensure a solid economic future
for all of us and for our nation.

Children of Color Desperately Need Help

State of America's Children 2011 tells us that children
of color are behind on virtually every measure of child
well-being. They face multiple risks that put them in
grave danger of entering the pipeline to prison rather
than the pipeline to college, productive employment and
successful futures. Children of color are at increased
risk of:

Being born at low birth weight and with late or no
prenatal care

 Babies of Black mothers are almost twice as likely as
babies of White mothers to be born at low birthweight.

 Black babies are more than twice as likely to die
before their first birthday as White babies.

 Black and Hispanic babies are more than twice as
likely as White babies to be born to mothers who
received late or no prenatal care in almost half the
states.

Living in poverty and extreme poverty

 More than one in three Black, one in three Hispanic
and one in 10 White children live in poverty ($22,050
for a family of four).

 For children under age five, 41.9 percent of Black, 35
percent of Hispanic and almost 15 percent of White
children are poor.

 More than one in six Black and one in seven Hispanic
children live in extreme poverty-at half the poverty
level or below. One in 20 White children lives in
extreme poverty.

Lacking family stability

 Fewer than 40 percent of Black children live with two
parents.

 Almost one in two Black children and more than one in
four Hispanic children live with their mother only,
compared with fewer than one in five White children.

 Black children are more than twice as likely as White
children and almost twice as likely as Hispanic children
to live with neither parent.

 Black children are more than seven times as likely and
Hispanic children more than two and a half times as
likely as White children to have a parent in prison.

Greater health risks

 Black and American Indian babies are more than twice
as likely to be born to teen mothers as White babies.

 Black and Hispanic children are almost three times as
likely to be in poor or only fair health as White
children and are more likely to have an unmet medical
need due to cost than White children.

 More than one in three children in low-income families
is overweight or obese. Black teens are 26 percent and
Hispanic teens 32 percent more likely than White teens
to be overweight or obese.

Lacking a quality education

 Nearly 80 percent or more of Black and Hispanic public
school students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades
are unable to read or do math at grade level compared to
50 percent or more of White children.

 Black students are more than three times as likely as
White or Asian/Pacific Islander students and more than
twice as likely as Hispanic students to be suspended
from school.

 Thirty-five percent of Black and 29 percent of
Hispanic high school students attend the more than 1,600
"dropout factories" across the country where 60 percent
or fewer of the students in any given ninth grade class
will graduate in four years with a regular diploma.

 The averaged graduation rate for Black and Hispanic
students is just over 60 percent, in contrast with 81
percent for White and 91 percent for Asian/Pacific
Islander students. The 20-plus percentage point spread
in graduation rates between Black and White students
exists in 13 states.

Being stuck in foster care, without permanent families

 Black children are overrepresented in foster care -
they represent 30 percent of children in foster care,
double the percent of the child population who are
Black.

 Black children stay in foster care longer than White
children.

Ending up in the juvenile justice system

 Youth of color make up approximately two-thirds of
youth in the juvenile justice system.

 Black youth are over three times more likely than all
other groups to be arrested for a violent offense.

 The number of girls arrested has grown by 50 percent
since 1980; American Indian girls are four times and
Black girls three times more likely to be incarcerated
than White girls.

 Black youth make up 62 percent of those prosecuted in
adult court, but only 17 percent of the overall youth
population.

Being caught in the college completion gap

 The Black-White gap in college completion persists and
the Hispanic-White college completion gap is even
greater.

Being unemployed

 In 2010, four out of 10 Black and three out of 10
Hispanic teens ages 16 to 19 were unemployed.

 The youth jobless rate for teens 16 to 19 in July 2010
was higher than at any time in the past five decades.

Killed by guns

 More Black than White children and teens were killed
by firearms in 2007. Black children and teens were more
likely to be victims of homicide and White children and
teens were more likely to be victims of suicide.

 Black males 15 to 19 are more than five times as
likely as White males and more than twice as likely as
Hispanic and American Indian males to be killed by
firearms.

 From 1979 to 2007, the annual number of firearm deaths
of Black children and teens increased by 61 percent; the
number for White children and teens decreased by 54
percent

The multiple risks facing children of color are cause
for great concern by us all, especially considering our
responsibility as a nation to raise a next generation
that can care not only for themselves and their own
families but also our seniors of tomorrow. While today
there are almost twice as many children as seniors, by
2040 that gap will close. There will be 94 million
children and 81 million seniors. Our children's success
in education and employment will be essential if we are
to keep society functioning, businesses running, adults
teaching and health care professionals serving
everyone's needs. Today's children will care for all of
us tomorrow. We must take extraordinary steps to address
the crisis today-the worst since slavery-so we will have
a generation who can succeed in life and support our
nation's future. We do not have a moment to lose.
Children have only one childhood and that is today.

Children Need Help Now

We know that poverty impairs children's emotional,
intellectual and physical development and ends up
costing our nation billions of dollars in lost
productivity and increased health care costs. We know
how to end child poverty and give each child a fair
start. We know how to give children a healthy start and
to keep them wellnourished. We know how to give children
a head start to make them ready for school and help them
flourish when given a quality education. We know how to
prevent child abuse and neglect, keep children safely
out of foster care, find permanent families for children
in foster care and keep children out of the juvenile
justice system. To paraphrase what our mothers and
grandmothers taught us, if you knew better, you should
do better. Instead, we have not invested as we should
and urgently need to improve in each of the following
areas. State of America's Children 2011 reports:

Income Gaps

 Wide gaps in income persist. Since the late 1970's the
incomes of the bottom 90 percent has essentially
stagnated while the incomes of the top one percent have
soared.

 In 2008, the income share for the richest 10 percent
of U.S. households was 48.23 percent, just slightly
below its 2007 record high level of 49.74 percent. The
average income for the bottom 90 percent of households
in 2008 was at its lowest level in more than a decade.
The one year income drop for this group in 2007-2008 was
its largest since 1938.

 In 2009, the income of married-couple families with
children was three times higher than that of female
householders for families of all races.

Lack of income supports

 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
benefits in 2009 were less than half the 1970 real
dollar amount in nearly two thirds of the states.

 In 2008, 79 percent of child support cases had court
orders, but collections were made in only 57 percent of
child support cases.

 Tens of millions of children, working families and
individuals benefited from the Earned Income Tax Credit
and Child Tax Credit in the 2008 tax year, but many more
could in the future if eligibility were expanded. Lack
of health coverage

 While Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) insure one in three children and more
than half of all low income children in America, one in
eight Black children and one in six Hispanic children
are still uninsured. Two-thirds of the more than eight
million uninsured children are eligible for coverage in
Medicaid or CHIP but are not enrolled largely due to
state-imposed barriers that differ across states.

 While 34 states made improvements to children's health
coverage in 2010, only six states provided for express
lane eligibility for Medicaid and/or CHIP and one-third
of the states still did not provide 12-month continuous
eligibility to help children enroll and stay enrolled in
health coverage.  Hispanic children are 76 percent more
likely and Black children 50 percent more likely than
White children to have an unmet medical need due to
cost.

Lack of nutritional supports

 While an average of 15.6 million children a month
received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) benefits in 2009, more than one in 10 households
has limited access to food in the vast majority of
states.

 Only one in nine low income children who eats a free
or reduced price school lunch during the school year is
reached by the Summer Food Service Program.

Lack of support for quality early childhood programs

 The annual cost of center-based child care for a four-
year-old is more than the annual in-state tuition at a
public four-year college in 33 states and the District
of Columbia.

 A family must have an income that is below 175 percent
of the poverty level ($32,043 for a family of four) to
receive a public child care subsidy in 18 states and the
District of Columbia.

 In more than one in three states, only 10 or fewer
hours of training a year is required for child care
center directors and teachers.

 Most states exceed the recommended maximum child-staff
ratios for pre-school aged children in licensed centers.
The infant-staff ratios in center-based care are 5:1 or
higher in 15 states.

 In nearly half the states, small family child care
homes are not required to be licensed until five or more
children are in the home, and in 35 states providers in
licensed homes do not have to have a high school
diploma.

 Only 13.8 percent of three-year-olds and 38.9 percent
of four-year-olds were in state funded pre-kindergarten
programs, Head Start or early intervention/special
education in 2008-2009.

Lack of access to quality education for every child

 Only 10 states require by statute that all school
districts offer full-day kindergarten. Forty-four states
and the District of Columbia require half-day programs
that leave children a half step behind as they enter
first grade.

 While the number of "dropout factories" and the
proportion of students of color who attend them have
been reduced, there are still 1,634 dropout factories-at
least one in every state. Seventy percent of them are
concentrated in just 12 states.

 The United States spends almost two-and-a-half times
as much per prisoner as per public school pupil.

Lack of supports for abused and neglected children

 Following a pattern of recent years, about 40 percent
of children who were abused or neglected in 2009
received no services following the investigation of
their maltreatment and many more received far fewer
services than they need.

 In the majority of states, at least one-third of the
children in foster care between one and two years
experience three or more placements. The median length
of stay in foster care for a child is over 12 months in
31 states.

 An estimated 114,000 children are in foster care
waiting to be adopted.

 More than 29,000 youth aged out of foster care at 18
or older in 2009 without being returned home, adopted or
placed permanently with relatives. Researchers report
these children are at increased risk of not graduating
from high school or enrolling in college and being
unemployed, incarcerated or homeless. In most states the
majority of these children entered foster care when they
were older than 12.

Lack of progress in reforming the juvenile justice
system

 States are working to divert youth charged with status
offenses, such as curfew violations, running away,
truancy offenses and incorrigibility, to community-based
programs to prevent their entry into the juvenile
justice system-but progress in many states is slow.

 About two-thirds of youth in residential placement are
there for status offenses, probation violations and
other technical violations, drug offenses, or property
and public order offenses. Just over one-third are there
for offenses against persons.

 Approximately 250,000 children are prosecuted,
sentenced or incarcerated as adults each year in the
United States. About 10,000 children are held in adult
jails and prisons on any given night, two thirds of them
while they are awaiting trial, despite high risk for
sexual abuse and other harms.

Lack of sufficient progress in ending gun violence

 Since 1979, gun violence has ended the lives of
110,645 children and teens in America.

 There are more than 280 million privately owned
firearms in the U.S., which is the equivalent of nine
firearms for every 10 men, women and children in this
country.

 In 2007 alone, 3,042 children and teens died from
gunfire in the United States-eight every day-as a result
of homicide, suicide or accidental shooting. Almost six
times as many teens suffered non-fatal gun injuries,
which have serious physical and emotional consequences
that frequently go untreated.

Conclusion

The portrait of continuing and worsening racial and
income inequality is clear as we look at the state of
America's children today. Rather than moving forward, we
are moving backwards. Programs and services that we know
can help children thrive-Medicaid and CHIP (the
Children's Health Insurance Program), the Maternal and
Child Health Block Grant, WIC (the Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), SNAP
(the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), Early
Head Start and Head Start, the Child Care and
Development Block Grant, the Title I Education Program
for Disadvantaged Children, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act programs, Pell Grants, the
Social Services Block Grant and others are threatened
with federal cuts or program changes that will unravel
the safety net for poor and low income children. These
cuts will come on top of deep cuts in state funding for
early childhood development, K-12 education and higher
education, mental health and other specialized treatment
for children and parents, and services and staff for
children and youth in foster care and in the juvenile
justice system. Families too have become more fragile as
jobs are lost, unemployment compensation has been
reduced, public assistance and public health programs
restrict access, housing foreclosures continue and
affordable housing becomes scarcer.

 We must invest in our children and their families.
This means keeping key priorities for children front and
center:

 End child poverty;

 Ensure every child and pregnant woman access to
affordable, comprehensive health and mental health
coverage and services;

 Provide high quality early childhood development
programs for all;

 Ensure every child can read at grade level by the
fourth grade and guarantee quality education through
high school graduation;

 Protect children from abuse and neglect and connect
them to caring permanent families; and

 Stop the criminalization of children at increasingly
younger ages, reduce the detention and incarceration of
children and invest in prevention and early intervention
strategies.

We must reclaim our country, our core values and our
spiritual foundation in order for our children to thrive
and protect our nation's economic future.

___________________________________________

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