A new Race For Results report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows Wisconsin’s wide gap in well-being between white and African-American children continues.
The foundation released its first Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children in 2014. The report showed, among other findings, that there was a significant opportunity gap between African-American children and kids of other races and ethnicities. That initial report also revealed that, specifically in Wisconsin, African-American kids were the least likely to succeed educationally and financially when compared to other states surveyed.
This year, Wisconsin ranked slightly higher, coming in at 41 out of 44 states surveyed. According to the national report, the index scores for African-American children "should be considered a national crisis" and that even though scores vary across parts of the United States, "African-American kids face some of the biggest barriers to success in nearly all states."
Ken Taylor is the executive director of Kids Forward, which was formerly known as the Wisconsin Council of Children and Families. He noted that the scores assigned to different racial and ethnic groups are determined by 12 different indicators that, when combined, offer an overall look at the well-being of kids. The indicators include health, education and economic milestones.
"When we do that, we find that there are huge disparities between white kids here in Wisconsin and kids of color in general, and the biggest gaps are between white kids and African-American kids in Wisconsin," he said.
The factors used to determine scores include proficiency in reading and math at certain ages, school enrollment for children between ages 3 and 5, and birth weight. Another indicator, which is a point of worry for Taylor, centers around income and poverty. Economic security is defined as families earning more than twice the federal poverty level, according to an executive summary from Kids Forward.
Here’s what we know about where Wisconsin’s kids stand when it comes to this kind of financial stability, according to the 2017 Race For Results Report:
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72 percent of white children in Wisconsin live in economically secure families.
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24 percent of African-American children live in economically secure families.
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30 percent of Latino children live in economically secure families.
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31 percent of Hmong children live in economically secure families.
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36 percent of American-Indian children live in economically secure families.
"We know the long-term impacts of kids growing up in poverty has detrimental effects long into the future and so that's one that we're really concerned about," Taylor said.
Another point of concern — and another indicator — for Taylor is high school graduation rates. Among white students, 93 percent graduate on time. Meanwhile, 78 percent of American-Indian children graduate on time, whereas 64 percent of African-American students graduate on time.
Then, there’s the issue of reading scores, which Taylor said are low across the board in Wisconsin.
"That's really important because we know, the educators say up to, through third grade, kids are learning to read and subsequent to that, they're reading to learn, and so if you're behind in reading by fourth grade, it's really hard to stay up with your peers and that, the reading proficiency level across all racial and ethnic groups is low."
Taylor said the statewide average for fourth graders reading at the fourth grade level is 37 percent, and white children in Wisconsin are four times more likely to be proficient than African-American students.
Taylor acknowledged there are people working hard on this, but called the overall issue a multi-generational challenge.
"We have to address it both with a sense of urgency because there's kids who aren't going to be ready for kindergarten and they're not going to get a second chance at that, so we have to work urgently, but we also know that this is the great American challenge, and so we have to have a long-term commitment and we know to make real change, it's going to take more than the three years between the first report and the second report," he said.
Some recommendations from Kids Forward include:
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Increasing the minimum wage to a "family supporting wage" so parents can gain access to family supporting jobs;
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Offering high quality education to all children, and making efforts to expand affordable and quality early learning programs.
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Answering the need for better support for working parents.
The full report can be viewed at the Annie E. Casey foundation’s website.