By Lindsey Anderson / landerson@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — No more “Thank God for Mississippi.”
New Mexico is dead last in child well-being, according to the 2013 Kids Count report, taking the spot held by Mississippi since 1990.
Kids Count, released annually by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation, ranks the states on 16 indicators of child well-being, including economic well-being, education and health.
New Mexico’s drop to 50th is largely due to improvements Mississippi made in half of the indicators, especially the number of children attending preschool and children in families where the head of house lacks a high school diploma. Mississippi is now 49th.
New Mexico has never ranked above 40th since the data was first compiled in 1990.
Louisiana, Arizona and Nevada were also in the bottom five, while New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Jersey were in the top five.
New Mexico saw significant increases of children in poverty, children whose parents lack secure employment and children living in households with a high housing cost burden – three of the four indicators of economic well-being – from the mid-2000s to 2011, according to the report.
“Child poverty is very bleak,” said Shirley Jaquez, director of Jardin de los Niños, which serves homeless and near homeless children in the Mesilla Valley. “… When you start out with child poverty already being very high, when a recession hits, there’s no way to go but down.”
“We see people lined up here at the soup
kitchen, and the lines are getting longer and longer,” Jaquez said.Children in poverty, especially homeless children or those at risk of homelessness, are especially at risk of neglect and abuse, she said.
Kids Count is a “wakeup call” for legislators to improve the lives of New Mexico’s children, she said.
Unstable employment forces families to choose between food, shelter and health care for their children, Jacquez said.
“For children what that means they’re not going to get the health care they need when they need it,” she said. “They’re not going to get the right kind of food … They’re not always going to be in safe environments.”
New Mexico saw slight improvements in education, with 1 percent increases in children attending preschool and fourth grade reading proficiency.
Still, 62 percent of children didn’t attend preschool in 2009-2010, while 79 percent of fourth graders weren’t proficient in reading in 2011, according to the report.
Jardin seeks to address those low rates with a free pre-kindergarten program for homeless and near homeless children. The program is accepting qualified children who turn 4 on or before Aug. 31.
“Children need to be in an early learning environment, otherwise they start school delayed and it’s very difficult for them to catch up,” Jacquez said.
A variety of programs in local school districts also seek to improve those education deficiencies, from the federally funded Head Start preschool program to the Joint, Ungraded, Multi-age Primary (JUMP) program for struggling elementary school readers in Las Cruces Public Schools.
“It’s a slow change, but I think we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” LCPS spokeswoman Jo Galvan said. “We’re not going to make excuses about kids not being proficient.”
Schools are starting to change their mindset on education and developing models to ensure proficiency for all students regardless of challenges like income level and native language, Galvan said, mentioning the district’s programs English-language learners, students struggling in reading or math or those who don’t perform well in traditional school settings.
LCPS is also aiming to address the state’s low graduation rates with its Arrowhead Park Early College High School, offering students a diploma and associates degree. No students have dropped out of the school since it opened three years ago.
Statewide, 33 percent of high school students didn’t graduate on time in 2009-2010, unchanged from 2005-2006, according to Kids Count.
Teen drug abuse was also unchanged. Nine percent of New Mexico teens abused drugs in 2010-2011, according to the report. Nationwide, teen drug abuse dropped from 8 percent to 7 percent.
About half of high school students experiment with drugs, said Ruben Sanchez, the Juvenile Assessment and Reporting Center supervisor for Las Cruces who handles teens citations and is the house leader of Stepping Stones, a community home for teens with behavioral or substance abuse difficulties.
Funding for local recreational centers and free sports leagues has decreased, so teens look for other ways to pass the time, he said. Las Cruces’ location near the border also means many drugs are easier to access, he said.
“Drug use is staying the same because kids say they are bored,” Sanchez said. “… The more we embrace our youth, the less likely they are to use drugs.”
New Mexico has seen improvements in eighth graders’ math proficiency, child, teen deaths and child health insurance.
The state has also made significant improvements in teen birth rates, dropping from 62 births per 1,000 teens in 2005 to 53 births per 1,000 in 2010, according to the report.
The improvements are largely due to school districts doing away with abstinence-only education and adding school-based health centers, Earl Nissen, part of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Work Group, has said.
“I think all the efforts have paid off because we’re going in the right direction with the arrows,” he said.
However, the state has worsened in many indicators of child well-being, including teens not working and not in school, low birthweight, children in single-parent families and children living in poverty and high-poverty areas
“It’s very bleak,” Jacquez said. “We’ve been now five years in the recession … but it has greatly impacted our families.”
Lindsey Anderson can be reached at 575-541-5462. Follow her on Twitter @l_m_anderson
By the Numbers
Sixteen indicators are used to measure child well-being in the 50 states. New Mexico ranked last in the nation according to these indicators:
Economic well-being
•Children in poverty: 31 percent
•Children whose parents lack secure employment: 37 percent
•Children living in households with a high housing cost burden: 36 percent
•Teens not in school and not working: 11 percent
Education
•Children not attending preschool: 62 percent
•Fourth graders not proficient in reading: 79 percent
•Eighth graders not proficient in math: 76 percent
•High school students not graduating on time: 33 percent
Health
•Low-birthweight babies: 8.7 percent
•Children without health insurance: 9 percent
•Children and teen deaths per 100,000: 36
•Teens who abuse alcohol or drugs: 9 percent
Family and Community
•Children in single-parent families: 43 percent
•Children in families where the household head lacks a high school diploma: 22 percent
•Children living in high-poverty areas: 21 percent
•Teen births per 1,000: 53
