[US] Child advocates say education surest way out of poverty

from The Boston Globe

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --Rhode Island's high school graduation rate is up slightly after a decade-long plateau, according to a report released Monday by a child advocacy group.

Officials at Rhode Island Kids Count said 85 percent of all high school seniors graduated in 2005, compared to 82 percent a decade earlier. That rate never topped 84 percent in the years between.

Despite the slight improvement, Kids Count Executive Director Elizabeth Burke Bryant said Rhode Island's graduation rates are unacceptable, especially since manufacturing jobs that once employed those without a diploma are disappearing. She called education the single-best solution for elevating families out of poverty.

Students who fail to earn a high school diploma are three times more likely to be unemployed or earn lower wages than those who graduate, according to the report.

"How many families we have living in poverty 10 years from now will be determined by the success, or not, of our current high school students," she said.

The group's report is being unveiled to state policy-makers Monday morning, and it includes a new breakdown on student absenteeism. Burke Bryant said her group was alarmed to learn that nearly one in four students in the state's urban core -- Central Falls, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence, West Warwick and Woonsocket -- missed more than 20 days of school in 2004-2005.

These students will probably be at risk of dropping out of school as they get older, she said.

Kids Count backed the state's lawsuit against the former makers of lead paint and pigment and supported legislation requiring landlords to fix lead contamination.

This year's report shows the rate of lead poisoning for children declined to 3 percent in 2005 from 3.7 percent the year before. Children living in the state's urban core are twice as likely to have had a history of elevated lead levels in their blood as their counterparts in the suburbs.

Burke Bryant said she expects the number of lead-poisoned children will continue to drop since a new law this year requires many landlords to have their properties inspected for lead paint and to fix hazards.

She said another success over the past decade is the 47 percent reduction in the rate of Rhode Island children without health insurance. In 2004, about 5.8 percent of children were uninsured, the report said.

Gov. Donald Carcieri, who's said he's trying to close a $222 million budget deficit next year, has proposed eliminating state-funded health care for 3,000 children of illegal immigrants. Burke Bryant said her group believes that providing access to routine care is more cost effective than treating children in hospital emergency rooms.