Child Well-Being Declines Nationally, Driven By Education Failures: Study

The well-being of children declined nationally from 2019 to 2024 and the impact of the COVID pandemic on education still is being felt, according to a new report.

The Kids Count Data Book, published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, tracks the well-being of children nationally and by state. The report has been published annually since 1990 and looks at four primary categories to gauge child well-being: Economic, education, health, and family and community.

“Consistent with the past two Data Books, the greatest number of setbacks occurred in the Education domain, with three of its four indicators losing ground: math and reading proficiency and preschool attendance. These declines underscore that our nation has yet to fully recover from the pandemic,” the report states.

According to the report, 47 states experienced declines in education since 2019.

Overall, the well-being score for children for the country fell from 553 to 547 in the report’s scale, which goes from 0 to 1,000. The report found wide regional gaps throughout the country, with the northeast performing well and several southern states lagging behind. The top state for child well-being was New Hampshire with a score of 838, and the lowest score was Mississippi at 271.

“Most states with the lowest overall scores are in the southern half of the United States — among the 15 lowest-scoring states (below 500), 11 fall in the South and three are in the southern portion of the West,” the report states. “Conversely, as reflected in the rankings, the Northeast has a concentration of the highest-scoring states, with five of the seven scoring above 700 located in that region.”

Overall, the report found that scores declined in 29 states, with losses in education driving much of the drop. “At the same time, 15 states improved children’s well-being and six remained stable,” the report stated.

Another area of concern highlighted in the report was health. The report found that health well-being scored fell in 26 states and that only 10 states had seen improvement since 2019.

There were several bright spots noted in the report. Positive trends included:

• Reductions in teen births and children living in high-poverty areas;
• Declines in child poverty;
• Increases in parental employment and educational attainment;
• Improvements in on-time high school graduation rates; and
• A slight decrease in the share of children and teens who are overweight or obese.

“Progress in Economic Well-Being was more encouraging, with 29 states performing better since 2019, and 13 states faring worse,” the report found. “Delaware, New Mexico and New
Hampshire made the greatest improvements. New Mexico’s economic progress stands out,
as a historically lower-ranked state achieving significant advances for kids.”