Kids Count data ranks Alaska 41st overall for child well-being

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Monday, March 27th, 2023 11:52am

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Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - The Alaska Children's Trust is presenting data from Kids Count, which is a national effort to provide data on the well-being of children, youth, and families, to the senate education committee. The data shows that Alaska ranks 41st national for child well-being

The Alaska Children's Trust is scheduled to meet with the Senate Education Committee to present them with data from Kids Count, which is a national study that looks at the well-being of children, youth, and families. The data from Kids Count is broken down into four categories: Economic Well-being, Education, Health, and Family and Community.

The category that Alaska placed the highest in was Family and Community, where it placed 22nd in the country. Some of the information that was looked at for that category included Children in single-parent families, Children living in high-poverty areas, and Teen Pregnancy. Alaska saw a decrease of 3% in the number of children in single-parent families from 33%, from 2008 to 2012, to 30%, from 2016 to 2020. Children in high-poverty areas increased from 1% to 7% over the the same time frame.

For Health and Economic Well-being, Alaska ranked 44th nationally in both categories.

Alaska placed 49th for education, with New Mexico placing 50th. The notable stats that came out from the education data included that the percentage of fourth graders not proficient in reading was 75% in 2019. The percentage of eighth graders not proficient in math was 71% in 2019.

Here is a link to the Kids Count data.

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