"We can’t get there unless we know where we are going."
That familiar saying is a guide for anyone with a goal. It is particularly relevant for all of us whose work is based on data-driven decision making that emphasizes the importance of quantifiable goals and measurements.
As we consider policy decisions to improve the health and welfare of Alabama’s children, we look to the 2011 KIDS COUNT Data Book as our GPS navigation system.
For more than twenty years, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has invested millions of dollars to provide state-by-state KIDS COUNT reports that include key measures and statistical trends on the condition of America’s children and families.
As executive director of VOICES for Alabama’s Children, I know that results matter. VOICES has partnered at the state and local level to work for positive change for our state’s children. Some issues have received more time, money and effort than others and, as a result, have had greater traction. In other areas, new programs and changes are in their infancy and just beginning to take root. While we may be going uphill, overall, our state is still moving forward.
This year, KIDS COUNT ranked Alabama 48th in child well-being, a position that we have occupied before. On the positive side, Alabama is making improvements in child well-being. Since other states are also, we will have to improve at a greater rate than other states to catch up and surpass those states to be in a position of which we could be proud.
Much more than pride is at stake, however. The future of our state will depend on what we do for our children today. The children and young people reflected in the KIDS COUNT numbers represent our future workforce, our future civic and governmental leaders, and our long term neighbors.
We have seen that we can make real progress and actually achieve national recognition when we invest in proven programs such as AllKids health insurance to ensure that children have access to preventive and regular medical care; when we invest in high-quality pre-k so that children are well-prepared to succeed when they enter kindergarten; when we invest in the Alabama Reading Initiative to ensure that children are reading on grade level and able to comprehend through reading the varied subject matter that they will encounter when they reach fourth grade and beyond; when we invest in distance learning and provide all young people the opportunity to get a leg up on higher education by taking Advanced Placement courses while still in high school. We know we can provide Alabama’s children with futures full of success and in so doing make Alabama a greater state.
Some real challenges come to bear when we realize that because 87% of our state’s revenue sources are earmarked. Our legislators can’t truly fund the programs that will give us the greatest return on our investments. We live in a state where we know what to do, but are often prohibited from making the best investments.
While the 2011 KIDS COUNT Data Book can be considered the state’s map for achievement, it is worthless if we fail to pay attention and act upon its information. VOICES will be publishing the 2011 Alabama Kids Count Data Book in mid-September that will give us a more detailed county-by-county map.
These annual reports provide consistent and reliable information that our legislature and local officials should consider before writing budgets, enacting laws or creating regulations. Where barriers to setting real priorities and investing in programs that will give us the greatest payback exist, policymakers should work to take those barriers down.
Improving Alabama’s KIDS COUNT numbers will pay big dividends down the road. We will see a more educated population able to secure and succeed in good paying jobs and to support themselves and their families. Self-sufficiency will reduce juvenile and adult crime as well as the need for many social programs.
We could actually break the cycle of generational poverty by adequately providing for the health, safety, and education of all children. In these tough economic times, wise investments, like our children, are priceless.
Linda Tilly is the executive director of VOICES for Alabama’s Children, a non-profit child advocacy organization that works statewide to improve outcomes for children. Write to Linda at ltilly@alavoices.org.
Alabama’s optimists will be quick to find the silver linings in the latest Kids Count survey, the annual report that highlights how well America takes care of its children.
Here, that is an admirable stance — especially since Alabama bucked a portion of its usual low-scoring trends and posted gains in critical areas such as high school dropout rates, teen birth rates and child death rates.
We commend people like Linda Tilley, executive director of the advocacy group VOICES for Alabama Children, whose tireless efforts on behalf of the state’s youngest are worthy of widespread recognition. Her hopefulness can be contagious.
Alabama, which dropped one spot to No. 48 in the Kids Count rankings, "actually (is) getting better," Tilley told The Associated Press. "It’s just that while we’re getting better, other states are getting better as well. It’s just that we were so behind to start with."
Unfortunately, it is impossible to either sugarcoat or ignore the main headline from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count report that was released earlier this week. By and large, the well-being of a quarter of Alabama children is dominated by poverty. It’s a constant story that’s worsening. And until that changes, the state is unlikely to rise from among the nation’s lowest-ranked states for child welfare.
There is scant solace in the fact that the number of Alabama children who live in poverty rose at virtually the same rate (19 percent) as that of the United States (18 percent), or that those dismal statistics are caused, in part, by the early months of the Great Recession.
Children don’t care about statistics or excuses. As children in the richest, most developed nation on the planet, they deserve a better outlook than that. That has to be our goal.
Poverty is a virus that infects everything it touches. It affects health, it reduces educational opportunities and, in turn, plays a role in long-term earning potential and crime rates. We’d like to believe that the fact that 1 out of 4 Alabama children are living in poverty will shake this state’s powerful into some sort of action.
Sadly, though, Alabama does not instill that confidence. What’s needed is a Legislature that makes child poverty an emphasis on par with ethics reform, which lawmakers obsessed about in 2010 and then hurriedly strengthened the state’s ethics laws.
Tilley, the child advocate, calls Alabama’s struggle to improve children’s lives "a marathon," and urges us not to be discouraged. "We have the right things in place to improve," she said.
The thousands of Alabama children who live on the fringes of economic survival shouldn’t have to wait for generational change. If ever we faced a priority worth addressing, this is it.