We must do better for state children
Oklahoma can be a hard place to be a kid. This conclusion is hard to escape with the release of the new Kids Count Data Book, the annual report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that measures child well-being in four key areas — health, education, economic well-being, and family and community. The report ranks Oklahoma 44th out of the 50 states for child well-being. In three out of four areas, Oklahoma ranks in the bottom 10.
In Oklahoma, we’re simply not doing what it takes to give all kids what they need to thrive. Hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma children live in poverty. Tens of thousands do not have health insurance. Even in areas where Oklahoma made significant gains in recent years, like reducing the teen birth rate, our progress trails most states.
To be sure, life did get easier for kids and families as the state and national economy emerged from the Great Recession. Compared with 2010, Oklahoma has an 8 percent lower child poverty rate, a 9 percent higher rate of parents with full-time jobs, and a 19 percent lower rate of families facing burdensome housing costs. But policy decisions by state leaders continue to hold us back.
One way Oklahoma makes life harder for children is the state’s continuing refusal to accept federal dollars to expand health care access. The largest group without health coverage in Oklahoma is working adults, many of whom are raising children. If we help more parents get insurance, their kids are much more likely to get covered, too. That’s especially needed because Oklahoma’s child uninsured rate of 7 percent is worse than all but four other states.
For similar reasons, Oklahoma should stop the push to deny health care to parents if they don’t work a certain number of hours each week and complete strict reporting requirements. Whole families suffer when a parent loses health care — and when that parent is struggling with mental illness or a chronic disease, it can cascade into deep poverty or losing kids to foster care.
Of the four areas covered in the report, Oklahoma’s worst ranking (46th) was for education, which is sadly unsurprising considering the state’s deep cuts to education over the past decade. In both fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, Oklahoma ranked near lowest in the nation for students scoring proficient or better. We also saw a 7 percent increase of children in families where the head of the household lacks a high school diploma — a trend that’s right at the intersection of our state’s high teen birth rate and low educational attainment.
This year, lawmakers did finally vote to fund more competitive teacher salaries and undo some of the cuts to schools. We must maintain and improve on that commitment to reverse these trends. We must do better to become a state that protects and empowers all our kids.
One way Oklahoma makes life harder for children is the state’s continuing refusal to accept federal dollars to expand health care access. The largest group without health coverage in Oklahoma is working adults, many of whom are raising children. If we help more parents get insurance, their kids are much more likely to get covered, too.