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Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Arkansas stuck among bottom five states for child well-being, report shows
(for Carter's Kids) Arkansas remains among the worst states for child well-being, ranking 45th nationwide for the second year in a row, according to the annual Annie E. Casey Foundation report released Monday. The group's 2025 KIDS COUNT Data Book measures 16 indicators of child well-being in four categories: education, health, economic well-being and family and community. The report ranked Arkansas: 36th in education 45th in economic well-being 46th in family and community 47th in child health Arkansas has consistently ranked in the bottom 10 states overall and in the specific categories. The state's statistics worsened for the majority of indicators in 2023, the year the data in Monday's report was collected. The report drew comparisons between 2023 and 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread socioeconomic impacts on families. In that time, Arkansas saw a decrease of children who live in poverty or whose parents lack secure employment, but the state's rates of children in those situations outpaces the national rates, according to the report. In 2023, 144,000, or 21%, of Arkansas children lived in poverty, only a 1% decrease since 2019. The state also had fewer children in high-poverty areas with 68,000 in 2023, a 2% decrease since 2019. Aecf-2025kidscountdatabook-embargoed Other indicators remained stagnant, such as 37% of children in single-parent households and 12% of high school students not graduating on time, according to the report. The state 'cannot become complacent as the result of modest improvements,' said Keesa Smith-Brantley, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in a press release. AACF is a member of the Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT network. 'We should be particularly alarmed by the outcomes for our teens,' Smith-Brantley said. 'We're trending in the wrong direction for teens not attending school and not working and teens who are overweight or obese. And while Arkansas's teen birth rate improves each year, we're stuck at or near the bottom because of the policy choices and investments we're not making.' In 2023, 17,000 Arkansas teens were neither working nor attending school, a 3% increase from 2019. Children and teens between the ages of 10 and 17 saw a 4% increase in obesity rates from 2019 to 2023 while the national rate remained stagnant, according to the report. Additionally, Arkansas had almost double the national rate of teen pregnancy in 2022, even after a 17% decrease since 2019. By 2023, the state's rate had dropped from 25 to 24 births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19, according to the Casey Foundation report. The national rate is 13 births per 1,000 females. 'Those babies are more likely to be born in families with limited educational and economic resources, and if you have a baby as a teen, there are simply going to be more challenges with finishing high school, going on to college and working [up and] out of poverty,' AACF policy director Christin Harper told reporters in a Wednesday news conference about the report. President Donald Trump's administration has attempted to withhold Title X family planning grant funds, which include teen pregnancy prevention efforts. This is one of several recent federal actions that Harper and other AACF leaders said would put child well-being in Arkansas at risk. Nearly 3,400 Arkansas babies were born with low birth weights in 2023, a 0.4% increase since 2019. Being born at less than 5.5 pounds, often caused by premature birth, creates health risks for children not only in infancy but throughout childhood and even into adulthood, according to a 2024 Casey Foundation report that highlighted the racial disparities among children's health, particularly affecting Black Arkansans. 2025-KCDB-profile-embargoed-AR Arkansas also consistently has among the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality nationwide, but it remains the only state that has taken no action to adopt the federal option of extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth, according to KFF. More than half of births in Arkansas are covered by Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance system for low-income Americans. Additionally, Arkansas' rate of child and teen deaths worsened from 2019 to 2023, totaling 300 per 100,000. About half of the more than 800,000 Arkansans on Medicaid are children. An additional 50,000 children in Arkansas, or 7%, were uninsured in 2023, a 1% increase from 2019, according to the KIDS COUNT report. A federal budget bill moving through Congress would make deep cuts to Medicaid spending, reducing the program by $625 billion over 10 years, and shift some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, to state governments. As of March, 235,927 people in Arkansas received SNAP benefits, the Advocate previously reported — approximately 7.6% of the state population. AACF leaders said last week that they are concerned the budget bill will worsen child well-being in Arkansas if it receives approval from Congress and Trump. Arkansas' SNAP program contains a work requirement, and the state has taken steps to impose a work requirement for recipients of the Medicaid expansion program. The federal budget bill would also add new Medicaid work requirements for some able-bodied adults. AACF has repeatedly denounced such requirements. U.S. House GOP mandates Medicaid work requirements in giant bill slashing spending Children who live in households at risk of poverty 'are especially likely to fall off of health care [coverage] because their parents can't meet the work requirements,' said Maricella Garcia, AACF's race equity director. The organization is also concerned about the 43,000 Arkansas children aged 3 and 4 who were not in early childhood education programs between 2019 and 2023, AACF education policy director Nicole Carey said. This number increased 6% between 2015 and 2018, according to the report. Fourth-graders in Arkansas were 3% less proficient in reading in 2024 than in 2019, according to the report, and state officials have made improving childhood literacy a priority in the past few years. The wide-ranging LEARNS Act of 2023 implemented literacy coaches in public schools graded 'D' and 'F' by the Department of Education. Under the new education law, students who don't meet the third-grade reading standard by the 2025-26 school year will not be promoted to 4th grade, but $500 tutoring grants will be available on a first-come, first-served basis with priority to those to be held back in third grade. Carey pointed out that the fourth-graders of the most recent school year were in kindergarten at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 'When they did their testing in the school year of 2023-24, that was when a couple of those literacy pieces [of LEARNS] were still being implemented, so we really can't say yet if the literacy coaches in the 'D' and 'F' schools or those literacy tutoring grants are going to impact this indicator,' Carey said. 'There's definitely hope that they will.' Nationwide in 2024, '70% of fourth graders were not reading proficiently, worsening from 66% in 2019 — essentially undoing a decade of progress,' the report states. 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Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Current legislation a mixed bag for advocates of Arkansas' children, nonprofit leader says
Olivia Stallings, 10, discusses the importance of learning about state government before a crowd in the Arkansas Capitol on Feb. 10, 2025. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate) Across Arkansas' political spectrum, children are often a focus of proposed legislation. But without the ability to vote themselves, advocates and parents often voice what they think is best for kids' growing brains and bodies. On Monday, Arkansas Advocates for Childrens and Families opened the floor for 10-year-old Olivia Stallings to share her thoughts on state government, and the dozens of visitors present for a rally in the Capitol rotunda were silent for the four-and-a-half-foot tall girl with her purple tablet. Bill to prohibit discrimination passes split Arkansas House panel after much public opposition 'Even though we don't get to vote, it's still important to know what's going on,' Olivia said while standing on a stool. 'For instance, a couple of weeks ago, newly elected Sen. Jamie Scott spoke to the Senate about how getting rid of affirmative action would harm a lot of working people as well as some of the unique experiences of African Americans in Arkansas.' The 'anti-affirmative action' bill is one that AACF executive director Keesa Smith-Brantley said the organization considers 'problematic.' Supporters of Senate Bill 3 say it would prohibit discrimination or preferential treatment; opponents are concerned about the repercussions for minority populations. Sponsor Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, has said the bill would prompt the state to focus on merit in hiring and procurement practices. The bill has been extensively debated in committee. Last week it was amended and re-referred to the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs committee. The bill's amendment is at the top of Tuesday's committee agenda. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE One may not immediately think the bill would affect children, but Smith-Brantley said it addresses a number of programs in Arkansas for young girls. 'It has a negative influence when you don't see women in industries, like in medicine, like in engineering, which are all industries that Arkansas critically needs,' Smith-Brantley said. Olivia spoke during AACF's annual Kids Count Day at the Capitol Monday, which Smith-Brantley said the fourth grader previously attended and was the only child to complete the organization's scavenger hunt. '[It] isn't just a day to miss school, it's a day for us to learn outside the classroom and experience new things and get real world knowledge,' Olivia said. 'Believe me, we aren't learning about legislation in school, are we?' Other speakers Monday highlighted the importance of fixing infrastructure that regularly causes problems, Arkansas' high rate of child poverty and hunger, increased wages for teachers and their reasons for becoming an advocate. Lindsey Russell, a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program coordinator with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, spoke about the state's high rate of food insecurity among children. When she was a kid, she said, she dreamed about becoming a famous singer or overseas missionary, but Arkansas' children today see their future without enough food. 'It is their reality now that they don't have the safety to dream of what their future could be because they are worried about what food will fill their bellies,' Russell said. Approximately 168,000 Arkansas children don't have a reliable source of adequate food, Russell said. Current investments in 'nutritious legislation' related to SNAP, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and universal free breakfast and lunch are an investment in the future workforce, she said. Smith-Brantley had a mixed reaction to proposed legislation currently making its way through the 95th General Assembly. While a bill that would offer free breakfast to public school students has earned AACF's support, a recently filed maternal health bill has the organization's leadership conflicted. Last week, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the 'Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act,' and Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, and Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Knoxville, filed the legislation in their respective chambers. Identical proposals, Senate Bill 213 and House Bill 1427, vow to prioritize improved maternal health for the lowest-income Arkansans under a $45 million annual price tag. The bills would establish presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Arkansans, offer reimbursements for doulas and community health workers and establish pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage for specific treatments. Smith-Brantley said the bill's promise to invest and reinvest in maternal health is important, but she's disappointed that it didn't expand Medicaid coverage for postpartum mothers from 60 days to 12 months after birth. Arkansas is the only state to not take action on the 12-month coverage, and Sanders has repeatedly said the state provides other health insurance options. House Bill 1004, filed by Republican Rep. Aaron Pilkington of Knoxville, would expand the coverage to 12 months, but hasn't been heard yet. 'The commitment to not only pass this bill, but to continue to invest in maternal health going forward is the only way that we're going to get out of a crisis,' Smith-Brantley said. AACF is neutral on a bill to ban students' cell phone usage at public schools, Smith-Brantley said, but she would prefer to see legislation that addressed mental and behavioral health issues in conjunction with the existing proposal. 'We understand the importance of children being able to focus and teachers not having to spend a significant amount of time trying to police behaviors,' she said. 'But we also don't want it to be a burden on the school districts.' Other areas lacking legislative focus include investments in early childhood education and after-school programs, Smith-Brantley said. 'We know that when children don't have access to programs out of school, that they are more likely to — to touch the juvenile justice system,' she said. 'So we want to make sure that those kids have something to do.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
