[Kids count Report - US] Few bright spots for Mississippi kids

from The Hattiesburg American

A new report paints a dismal picture of children's well-being in Mississippi.

The 2006 KidsCount Databook, an annual report released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ranks Mississippi at the bottom or close to the bottom in comparison to the rest of the country in 10 different indicators of child well-being.

Those indicators are: low-birthweight babies, infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, teen birth rate, high school dropout rate, percent of teens not working or attending school, percent of children living in homes where parent has no regular employment, children in poverty and children in single-parent families.

Though the state did experience some improvement in five of the 10 categories, in only two categories -decreases in the high school dropout rate and in the child death rate -did Mississippi outstrip the national average, still placing well behind most states in the country.

And in the percentage of children living in poverty, the number of low-birthweight babies born and the infant mortality rate, Mississippi ranked dead last.

Thirty-one percent of Mississippi's 749,569 children lived in poverty in 2004, compared to the national average of 18 percent, according to the report.

"The child poverty rate tells the story for lots of other indicators," report author Laura Beavers said.

The state's low rankings are deeply rooted, she said.

"In Mississippi, there is a historic disinvestment in lots of the things that we know help kids succeed," Beavers said. "In many states where you have the lowest outcome levels for kids, there wasn't the same amount of investment in the educational system, the economic development system and in the health care system, going back to the beginning of the state government system. And it continues to have a negative impact on children."

Mississippi's seeming progress on some fronts may be misleading, Beavers said.

While the state's teen pregnancy rate dropped from 70 births per 1,000 in 2000 to 63 per 1,000 in 2003, Mississippi teens still have a much higher pregnancy rate than the national average, which dropped from 48 per 1,000 in 2000 to 42 per 1,000 in 2003.

The factors that affect child well-being play into each other, said Larry Rodick president of Planned Parenthood Alabama, which covers southeastern Mississippi.

"Infant mortality rate is used as a general health indicator," Rodick said. "But teen pregnancy is one of the problems. We know, for example, that teens who deliver babies prior to 18 or 19 years of age - those infants tend not to make it, and that drives up the infant mortality rate."

Poverty also plays a role in infant mortality and child death rates, said Kaye Ray of the Southeast Mississippi Rural Health Initiative Inc.

"I think you can look at the poverty levels that are outrageously high for Mississippians - so many people make minimum wage, and don't have many opportunities to improve their lifestyles," Ray said. "Sometimes you have parents trying to raise their children and it's difficult to think of medical care as being a high priority when they're trying to pay the rent."

The decrease in the high school dropout rate is good news, said Hattiesburg Schools Superintendent Annie Wimbish - but it isn't moving quickly enough.

"I would like to believe other districts are doing what we're doing with attendance officers - being vigilant and doing follow-ups," Wimbish said. "It's not going fast enough for my liking, but having everybody educated has become a focus."

In the Hattiesburg district, 88 percent of students live in poverty.

Wimbish said the schools work to train teachers on how to help students in poverty and also offer free-lunch programs during the summer.

Mississippi kids have seen some positive improvements during the 17 years the Annie E. Casey Foundation has produced the databook, Beavers said. And in many ways, Mississippi is mirroring national trends - conditions that improved nationally during the 1990s have dropped off around the country. But compared to other states, she said, Mississippi still has a long way to go.

"The state still hasn't closed the gap," Beavers said.