The 2002 Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Factbook is out.
Flip through its 130 pages and you learn a whole lot about our children and the challenges some of them face. It’s a report loaded with facts and figures.
Talk to Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, and she will tell you that the state’s business community is becoming increasingly concerned about such facts and figures.
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"They’re paying attention more because everyone is looking at the ultimate test: What kinds of opportunities will our children have," she says?
Burke Bryant says the business community recognizes that its future work force is at stake. That it will only have skilled workers if today’s children are prepared to become skilled.
"That’s what this data is good for," she says.
Some of the figures are encouraging. Others are disturbing.
On a positive note, when it comes to ensuring that health insurance is available to our children, Rhode Island could serve as a national model. The numbers speak directly to the success of the state-backed and Medicaid-managed Rite Care and Rite Share programs. The programs are clearly putting our children on the insurance rolls.
As of 2000, according to KIDS COUNT, 5 percent of Rhode Island children under the age of 19 were uninsured, compared to 14 percent nationally.
Rhode Island also has the lowest rate of uninsured children in the country. In fact, the rate of uninsured children in Rhode Island has been reduced by half over the past five years.
"We’ve seen great health outcomes that in the long run save the state money," says Burke Bryant.
She also points out that Rhode Island is ranked number one in the country in terms of providing health insurance for children.
"That is something to be proud of," she says, noting that the state also scores high marks for its pre-natal care programs.
And there is encouraging news on the lead poisoning front. In Rhode Island’s core cities, 21 percent of the children who will enter kindergarten in the fall of 2003 had a history of elevated lead levels, as compared to 29 percent of children entering kindergarten in the fall of 1999 — and an astounding 45 percent in the fall of 1996.
That’s the good news. Now, for the more disturbing. The KIDS COUNT statistics paint a distressing picture of our urban public schools.
According to KIDS COUNT, one in five public school children did not begin and end the year in the same school. And again, is painfully evident through KIDS COUNT research that academic achievement in our poorer communities is not close to matching the standards of those more in affluent cities and towns.
The overall school mobility rate for Rhode Island was 19 percent for the 2000-2001 school year, but there was significant variation across school districts, with a high student mobility rate of 44 percent in Central Falls to a low of 4 percent in Barrington and Jamestown.
Of the 1,977 children who entered first grade in Providence in 1990, only 307 (16 percent) were still in the Providence school system in twelfth grade. The group of those leaving, according to KIDS COUNT, included students who had moved to another community, transferred to a private or parochial school, returned to their country of origin, dropped out, or were assigned to another grade or a special education class.
"What does it take to bring academic achievement to our poorer communities," asks Burke Bryant?
Burke Bryant is quick to point out that the goal of the Factbook is not so much to sound an alarm, but to point out progress – and to recognize where much work needs to be done.
There is something very sobering about facts and figures. They tell a story all by themselves. Did you know that 18 percent of children in Rhode Island are living below the poverty line?
"Our mission is to make sure we are all paying attention to what matters in the lives of kids," says Burke Bryant.
That’s a noble mission. It’s one of those missions that makes sense from the heart – and from the head.
"There is a tremendous link between what the business community cares about and what Rhode Island KIDS COUNT reports on every year," says Burke Bryant.
She’s right about that.
A high percentage of students starting a school year in one place and ending
it in another does not bode well for our work force of tomorrow. We’re making
some progress. But we’ve got a long way to go.
