{"id":596527,"date":"2018-06-27T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T06:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=596527"},"modified":"2018-06-27T13:47:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:47:08","slug":"new-mexico-ranks-last-in-new-national-survey-of-child-well-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/new-mexico-ranks-last-in-new-national-survey-of-child-well-being\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico ranks last in new national survey of child well-being"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_596561\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-596561\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-photo-01-771x585.jpg\" alt=\"Kids Count Conference\" width=\"771\" height=\"585\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-photo-01-771x585.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-photo-01-336x255.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-photo-01-768x582.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-photo-01.jpg 1055w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Don Usner \/ Searchlight New Mexico<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Searchlight New Mexico reporter Lauren Villagran interviews Diana Murillo-Trujillo, mayor of Anthony, on Monday at New Mexico Voices for Children\u2019s annual Kids Count Conference in Albuquerque.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Prospects for children in New Mexico are the worst in the nation, according to newly released data that rank states across 16 measures of child well-being.<\/p>\n<p>The state&#8217;s 50th-place ranking follows years of scrabbling around the bottom rungs of the annual Kids Count report, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and its network of state partners. Last year, New Mexico ranked 49th. The last time it ranked 50th was in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The data show we are at a crossroads,&#8221; James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, said in a news release. &#8220;We can continue to disinvest in our children or we can insist upon a new direction, one in which we make a deep commitment to improving conditions for all New Mexicans.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article is part of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0year-long journalistic investigation into child well-being in New Mexico. Read the series, Raising New Mexico,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The Annie E. Casey Foundation and New Mexico Voices for Children, its state partner, released the data Wednesday. They rank the 50 states on 16 indicators of child well-being, including the child poverty rate, reading proficiency among fourth-graders and teen birth rates. New Hampshire is No. 1 this year, and Louisiana is No. 49.<\/p>\n<p>Child advocates said New Mexico&#8217;s worst-in-the-nation showing should be a wakeup call for policymakers, but also stressed something unexpected. With nowhere to go but up, opportunity abounds for New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking this week at New Mexico Voices for Children&#8217;s annual Kids Count conference in Albuquerque, Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said the report &#8220;may be an urgent and compelling call to action for New Mexico&#8217;s leaders. There&#8217;s no reason child well-being shouldn&#8217;t be issue one on the agenda.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Creating equitable opportunities for all kids &#8230; that&#8217;s the cornerstone of a strong and prosperous New Mexico,&#8221; Boissiere said.<\/p>\n<p>Amber Wallin, deputy director of New Mexico Voices for Children, said the data &#8220;tell a story about the opportunities that are available&#8221; for the state&#8217;s children and families. Yet policy decisions on the state level, she said, can either open those opportunities or close them off.<\/p>\n<p>She pointed to 37 tax cuts since 2008, declines <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/1101256\/report-new-mexico-school-spending-tumbles.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in per-pupil funding and higher education spending<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/nmhealth.org\/news\/information\/2016\/4\/?view=407\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reductions in school-based health centers<\/a> as moments where policymakers chose to favor &#8220;the most well-connected and the biggest corporations&#8221; over the state&#8217;s children.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Too many of our kids are facing challenges,&#8221; Wallin said. &#8220;We cannot make progress for all of our kids without a deliberate focus on improving resources for those that are too often left behind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Policy changes, advocates stressed, do not have to be revolutionary to be profound.<\/p>\n<p>Because New Mexico is a small state by population &#8212; it ranked 36th in the 2017 Census estimate, with just under 2.1 million people &#8212; small, on-the-ground improvements can translate into large gains or losses in the annual rankings. For example, the rate of children not attending preschool fell to 57 percent in this year&#8217;s Kids Count report, from 58 percent last year. That means New Mexico climbed two steps in the national rankings, to 31st, in that measure of child well-being.<\/p>\n<p>Since its 50th place showing in the 2013 Kids Count rankings, New Mexico climbed in some measures of child well-being thanks to both national and state-level policy changes. The Affordable Care Act helped extend health insurance to 30,000 more of the state&#8217;s children. As of last year, 4,000 more children were attending preschool, and another 4,000 more were accessing state-funded home visiting programs, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/news\/education\/report-new-mexico-continues-to-improve-early-childhood-education\/article_28d7d392-6bee-5b16-9448-3e644443a0c5.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">than in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The state could climb above the national average for preschool enrollment with just another 680 children on the rolls, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nmvoices.org\/archives\/11565\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report<\/a> by New Mexico Voices for Children released in April 2018. Just 170 more babies born annually at a healthy birth weight would improve that measure above the national average.<\/p>\n<p>The annual rankings <a href=\"http:\/\/projects.searchlightnm.com\/raising-new-mexico-the-road-so-far\/the-trouble-with-being-no-49\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compare states to each other<\/a>. That means when a state institutes programs that move the needle on one measure of child well-being, it tends to rise. When a state cuts programs, it tends to fall.<\/p>\n<p>That suggests a need to prioritize programs focused on child well-being, according to Wallin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe our steady drop in child well-being is directly related to the past seven years of austerity policies that have starved our schools and health systems of critical sources of funding,\u201d she said. &#8220;It is time to make the investments that will help our hard-working families and their children thrive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-596565 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2-771x996.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"771\" height=\"996\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2-771x996.png 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2-336x434.png 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2-768x992.png 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2-1170x1512.png 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/kidsCount-infographic2.png 1360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Editor\u2019s note: Searchlight New Mexico receives funding support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prospects for children in New Mexico are the worst in the nation, according to newly released data that rank states across 16 measures of child well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":596561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[234,146,107],"class_list":["post-596527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-children","tag-poverty","tag-roundhouse","series-raising-new-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}