New Child Well-Being Index Offers Both Positive and Negative News for Youngest Americans

How are young children in America doing? A new report looks at the data and comes up with some pretty good news—as well as a few red flags. Young children’s overall well-being has improved since 1994, with particular improvements in children’s safety and educational attainment. But other trends—such as rising obesity for even young children and a growing number of low-birth-weight babies—still give cause for concern.

The Child Well-Being Index seeks to provide a holistic assessment of how children and adolescents from birth through age 17 are doing today, how children’s welfare today compares to the past, and trends over time. To produce the CWI, researchers from Duke University compile and analyze longitudinal data on nearly 30 indicators that reflect children’s and adolescents’ quality of life in seven different domains— economic well-being, social relationships, health, safety and behavior, education, community connectedness, and emotional well-being. In recent years they’ve also published annual “special focus” reports that hone in on how specific subgroups of children are doing, or how children are doing in particular areas.

This year’s special focus report looks at the well-being of young children and elementary school-aged children from birth through age 11. Between 1994 and 2002, overall child well-being improved substantially, in part because of large decreases in adolescent criminal behavior, victimization, and pregnancy—leading some observers to fear that improvements in child well-being were primarily and adolescent phenomenon, and that young children’s well-being was stagnating. By focusing just on younger children, this report seeks to determine whether improvements in child and youth well-being were in fact limited to adolescents, and finds good news—younger children’s well-being also improved substantially between 1994 and 2002.

Specifically, young children became safer between 1994 and 2002, their families’ economic situations improved, and their educational achievement blossomed. Infant and child mortality also decreased, as did a number of negative health indicators. On the downside, more babies are being born with low birth weights, and increasing numbers of young children are obese—even among toddlers and preschoolers under age five, nearly 14 percent are obese. And, overall, young children’s well-being has been mostly stagnant for the past six years.

A variety of indicators in the report are specifically relevant to early childhood education. A particularly striking positive trend involves full-day kindergarten—the share of children enrolled in full-day kindergarten (as opposed to half-day programs or no kindergarten at all) rose quite steadily from less than half in 1994 to more than two-thirds today. That’s dramatic progress, but it still leaves more than one-in-three children in partial day programs.

The percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds attending preschool also rose more than 10 percent from 1994 to 2002, from less than half to over 55 percent of children enrolled. Ironically, preschool enrollment appears to have declined slightly since 2002—even as states have increased the number of children served in public pre-k by more than 300,000. That finding deserves further inquiry—it could reflect inconsistencies in the data (trying to find reliable information on private preschool enrollment is incredibly tricky—particularly since public and parent understandings of what “preschool” means may have changed over time due to the pre-k movement’s emphasis on pre-k quality). Or, it could reflect real decreases in preschool enrollment, which would raise important questions for policymakers and pre-k advocates.

Positive trends in full-day kindergarten and preschool enrollment over the 1990s are hardly surprising. During the 1990s we saw a popularization of research on young children’s development that has both influenced parents’ behavior and spurred policymakers to focus greater attention on public policies intended to support young children’s development. These behavior changes and new policies seem to be paying off in the form of increased elementary school achievement—since the late 1990s 9-year-olds’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress has improved significantly in both reading and math.

Finally, a variety of environmental and behavior changes that affect children’s health—such as reductions in environmental lead, leading to lower rates of lead poisoning, or reduced rates of maternal smoking—have potentially positive impacts on children’s physical and mental development that may reduce the incidence of some learning problems and contribute to improved educational performance. At the same time, however, increasing percentages of babies born today with low birth weights, which can increase risk for cognitive and behavioral problems, could lead to more children having trouble in school down the road. Educators and policymakers should also consider how schools and early education programs can play a role in reducing obesity rates—such as by providing healthier snacks and lunches or increasing time devoted to physical activity.

Want to learn more about the Child Well-Being Index and what it tells us about how young children are doing today? Then join us tomorrow, April 25, at 10:00 AM at the New America Foundation for a presentation by the report’s authors and a panel discussion with experts on early education and children’s health. Register to attend here.

Trends in the Well-Being of Younger Children
Co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development

April 25, 2008
10:00 AM to 11:45 AM
New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW, 7th Floor
Washington, 20009

 

 

 

 

Featured Speakers

Dr. Kenneth Land
Coordinator, Child and Youth Well-Being Index Project

John Franklin Crowell
Professor, Duke University

Fasaha Traylor
Senior Program Officer Foundation for Child Development

Sara Mead
Senior Research Fellow, Education Policy Program and Workforce and Family Program New America Foundation

Bruce Lesley
President, First Focus

Valerie Kaufmann
Coordinator, Early Learning Branch, Maryland State Department of Education

Lauren Ratner
Director, Family and Community Health Association of State and Territorial Health Officials

 

 

 

 

Moderator

Rev. David Gray
Director, Workforce and Family Program New America Foundation