Jane Reuter jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com | Posted: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 4:17 pm
Douglas County’s children are thriving, awash in more advantages than other places in Colorado, according to the results of a state survey released March 27.
The 2012 Kids Count in Colorado report ranks Douglas tops for childhood well-being among the state’s 25 largest counties. Those counties, survey representatives say, include 95 percent of the state’s children.
The annual study, a publication of Colorado Children’s Campaign, is based on rates that include poverty, literacy, teenage pregnancy and infant mortality. Broomfield and Larimer counties ranked second and third best, with Denver County at the bottom.
It’s good news for Douglas County, said Colorado Children’s Campaign president and CEO Chris Watney, but not surprising.
“The overall child well-being rate correlates so closely with child poverty rates that I did expect to see Douglas County do very well, if not top the list,” she said. “When compared to some other places in the state, it is a very prosperous place and a good place for kids to live.”
Douglas County ranked sixth on MSN Money’s most recent list of the nation’s wealthiest counties. Its median household income is nearly double the national average.
The Kids Count survey is in its 19th year, but 2012 is the first time the Colorado Children’s Campaign has ranked the counties’ results.
Among 12 categories the report uses to assess children’s quality of life, Douglas County ranked first in six, including the lowest percentage of children living in poverty and uninsured, the smallest percentage of families relying on low-cost food, lowest teen birth and infant mortality rates, and smallest rate of births to women with less than a high school education.
The school district plays heavily into quality of life, and is among the reasons many families choose to live in Douglas County.
“As superintendent of a great school district and parent of two young children, I’d be the first to tell anyone Douglas County is a great place for children,” school superintendent Liz Fagan said. “I was very proud to see it in print, to see the data correspond to my personal experience of living and working in Douglas County.”
The Kids Count survey provides an indication of a child’s life path. In Denver County, for instance, more than half of the fourth-grade students are not reading at their grade level.
“When you look at those numbers, you start to see a picture of kids who are not going to succeed in school or life,” Watney said. “Colorado is really a story of disparity when it comes to a child’s well-being. There are pockets of place where we know kids are doing really well, and Douglas County seems to be a place where more kids are doing well than not.”
But statewide, a high percentage of children fall both well above and well below the averages, with fewer clustered around the middle. Watney believes there’s a disconnect in some areas between quality jobs and quality education.
“Colorado is a great place to live and a lot of very well-educated people will move here and take some of the very well-paying jobs,” Watney said. “But we aren’t necessarily educating our children well enough that they are able to take jobs and life themselves and their families out of poverty. The state’s economy, in the future, really relies on our ability to prepare the kids who live here to succeed.”
Further darkening the picture, 2010 U.S. Census Bureau statistics show the numbers of Colorado children living in high-poverty areas rose sharply over the last decade, from 2 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2010.
In wealthy areas, those statistics often are overlooked, and the issues they point to insufficiently addressed.
“For a county like Douglas to have historically been very prosperous, sometimes it’s even harder to address some of the needs of families and kids who are struggling because there aren’t necessarily systems in place to do so,” Watney said. “While it’s great you have a history of being an economically strong county, it does mean you may not have enough experience in how to support families that are struggling.”
No comments:
Post a Comment