Ohio drops in U.S. ranking of how well children fare

By ASHLEY LUTHERN

YOUNGSTOWN — Life for kids in Ohio isn’t bad, but it could be better.

That’s the brief version of findings in the 2008 Kids Count Data Book released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private organization that advocates for public policy changes to meet the needs of children nationwide.

Ohio has slipped from its 28th ranking last year to 30th this year in overall child well-being. States are ranked by 10 measures that are supposed to capture a wide range of factors, experiences across development from birth to early adulthood, and permit legitimate comparisons because they are consistent across states and over time.

“What’s interesting is that Ohio has never really moved out of the middle range in the 19 years of the study. People have a false sense of security because things could be better, but at least the state’s not on the bottom,” said Barbara Turpin, Kids Count project director for Ohio.

The two most striking factors in the Ohio study are infant mortality rate, at one of the worse in the nation; and high school dropout rate, at one of the best.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.