News from the 2010 KIDS COUNT Data Book
Louisiana’s Kids – Opportunities and Well-Being Status

Our ability to progress as a state depends on the degree to which we can create opportunities for all children to succeed. Louisiana ranks 49th nationally in the 2010 KIDS COUNT Data Book, a state-by-state study on the well-being of America’s children. The Data Book reveals that Louisiana improved on four of the 10 measures affecting child well-being since 2000. Yet on four other measures, conditions worsened for Louisiana’s kids. Two measures were not comparable to previous years.

The 21st annual Data Book is complemented by the expanded KIDS COUNT Data Center, which contains hundreds of measures of child well-being and allows users to create maps and graphs of the data at the national, state, county, and city level. To access information for Louisiana go to http://datacenter.kidscount.org/la.

Louisiana ranks in the bottom 10 nationally on all 10 indicators.
Louisiana ranked 49th in both the percentage of low-birthweight babies and the share of children in single-parent families. The state also ranked 48th in the infant mortality and child poverty rates; 47th in the child death rate, the teen death rate, and the percentage of teens who were neither enrolled in school nor were high school graduates; and 45th in the percentage of teens not in school and not working, and the percentage of children without secure parental employment. Louisiana’s highest ranking was on the teen birth rate, where it was 44th.

Child poverty remains high, but is lower than in 2000.
In 2008, 25 percent of Louisiana’s children lived in poverty, well above the national rate of 18 percent. However, child poverty in Louisiana actually is lower in 2008 than in 2000. (A family of two adults and two children were considered poor if their income in 2008 fell below $21,834.)

Low birthweight and infant mortality show signs of recent improvement.
Although Louisiana’s share of low-birthweight babies—11.0 percent in 2007—remains higher than it was in 2000, it did show improvement from its 2006 level of 11.4 percent. Similarly, the state’s 2007 infant mortality rate of 9.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, while higher than it was in 2000, fell 7 percent during the previous year.

Agenda for Children Releases 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Book on Louisiana's Children

New Orleans, LA, December 2, 2009—A new report released today finds that race and place are two of the most important predictors of child well-being in Louisiana. The 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Book on Louisiana’s Children, produced by Agenda for Children, presents and analyzes information on over fifty different measures of child well-being in each of Louisiana’s 64 parishes. The report documents critical statistics related to children’s health, demographics, education, child care, child welfare, and juvenile justice.

The Data Book focuses on the roles that both race and place play in child well-being in Louisiana. The quality and availability of housing, schools, job opportunities, and health care all combine to define a child’s environment, for better or worse. As the report reveals, children of color are more likely to grow up in distressed neighborhoods that can limit opportunities available to young people and their families. The data show that African American children in Louisiana are more likely than their white peers to experience a host of negative outcomes ranging from being born preterm to dropping out of high school. “Despite the victories of Civil Rights legislation more than four decades ago, we continue to see shocking racial disparities in some of our most basic measures of child well-being, including infant mortality rates and child poverty,” said Judy Watts, President/CEO of Agenda for Children. “As a society that values equity, it is imperative that Louisiana actively pursue policies and practices that lift up all our children. When decisions are made and policies are created, ask first, ‘Is it good for the children?’”

Key findings in the Data Book include:

Family Economics

• One out of every four Louisiana children lives in poverty.
• Child poverty rates vary widely across the state. The child poverty rate in East Carroll Parish (56%) is 3.7 times as large as the child poverty rate in St. Tammany Parish (15%).

Education

• Louisiana has made significant progress toward ensuring that more children enter kindergarten ready for school. Enrollment in pre-kindergarten in public schools increased by 57% between the 2000-2001 school year and the 2008-2009 school year, rising from 21,290 students to 33,438 students. In 2008, the National Institute for Early Education Research’s State of Preschool report ranked Louisiana 12th in the nation in terms of providing four year-olds with access to publicly-funded preschool programs.
• A majority of public school students come from low-income families in all but eight of Louisiana’s parishes. In the 2008-2009 school year, the percentage of students who were eligible for free or reduced lunch ranged from a low of 43% in Bossier and St. Tammany parishes to a high of 94% in Tensas Parish.
  

Health

• Louisiana has improved since 2001 in access to adequate prenatal care. In 2001, 79% of all births were to women who received adequate prenatal care, while the same was true of 85% of births in 2006. Despite the overall improvement, rates vary widely by both geography and race. In Acadia, the worst-ranked parish, only 67% of births in 2006 were to women who received adequate prenatal care. By contrast, 97% of La Salle Parish births in 2006 were to women who received adequate prenatal care. Statewide, white women were more likely than black women to have received adequate prenatal care. In 2006, 89% of births to white women were to mothers who had received adequate prenatal care, while the same was true of just 79% of births to black women.
• After many years of continuous improvements, Louisiana’s teen birth rate rose between 2005 and 2006, increasing from 50 to 55 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19. With 99 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19, the teen birth rate in Red River Parish (the worst-ranked parish) was three times as large as the rate in Lincoln Parish (the best-ranked parish).

Child Welfare

• The number of valid child abuse and neglect allegations in Louisiana increased by 22% between fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2007, rising from 13,999 to 17,098 allegations. Nearly all of the rise was caused by a large increase in the number of valid neglect allegations during this time. In FY 2007, three out of every four valid child abuse and neglect allegations involved neglect. Physical abuse accounted for 17% of allegations, while sexual abuse allegations comprised 5% of all valid child abuse & neglect allegations.

Juvenile Justice

• Since the beginning of the century, Louisiana has experienced a dramatic decrease in the number of youth who are in the custody or under the supervision of the Office of Juvenile Justice. The number of youth in secure custody declined from 1,485 youth in 2000 to 486 youth in 2007.

“In these difficult financial times, it is more important than ever that Louisiana invest in a brighter future for our children,” said Watts. “The data show that we were already failing too many Louisiana children even before the recession pushed more families into poverty. We urge decision-makers in state and local governments to protect children’s needs during difficult budget decisions.”

Hard copies of the Data Book can be obtained by contacting Agenda for Children. The full report can also be downloaded in its entirety at the Agenda for Children web site. Data on Louisiana’s children is also available through the KIDS COUNT Data Center, which allows users to map data, chart trends over time, and rank parishes. The Data Center also allows users to add “widgets” that show live charts, rankings or maps on their own web sites.