A new report released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that children are worse off in Texas than their peers in all but seven states.
The Lone Star State dropped to 43rd place on the annual report, slipping two places from last year.
“A ranking of 43rd I think is really unconscionable for a state as large as Texas, for a state as important as Texas on the national stage,” Jennifer Lee, Research Associate for the Center for Public Policy Priorities said. “Nearly 1 in 10 kids in the entire US lives in Texas, so when you look at the impact of what is happening to kids here in Texas means for the country, we really need to do better.”
The study ranks states based on overall child well-being. States are judged on children’s health, education, economic well-being, and surrounding factors such as family and community.
Texas ranked 33rd overall in economic well-being, 32nd in education, 38th in health, and 47th in surrounding factors. Lee said the state performed slightly better in education and economic well-being this year compared to previous years. However, Lee said it was Texas’ exceedingly high rate of uninsured children that dropped the overall score.
“This is an urgent,” Adriana Kohler with Texans Care for Children said. “This is a critical issue that needs to be addressed now.”
Kohler said the number of uninsured kids has decreased by more than 400,000 since 2008. At a first glance, Kohler said the numbers may look good, however compared to the rest of the nation Texas is tied for last place.
“We want kids to be healthy, be able to get to the doctor,” Kohler said, “not just when an emergency happens, but to get routine checkups.”
Texas also saw improvements in the number of kids graduating from high school and a much lower rate of teenage births. Lee credits the overall slip in rankings to other states improving at a faster pace.
“I do think this is a wake up call. Texas is consistently ranked for the last couple of years at the bottom of child well-being,” Lee said. “ I think the culture has been for a little while in Texas to wait until some sort of tragedy or some sort of emergency kind of forces people to take action and make improvements, but there are really a lot of things that we can do on the front end to prevent a lot of bad things from happening for kids, and to really support kids when they need it.”
