MA "Dead Last" in New Child Wellbeing Rankings

As you may have heard, a new Kids Count report about to be released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation places Massachusetts dead last (that would be number 50, el finito, the worst, bad news bears, etc.) in a state-by-state ranking of how low-income children fare in six areas, including social and emotional wellbeing and health.

While the full report is not yet available, snippets released to the media have been more than enough to get people talking. It seems like a shock to the system for a state such as MA, used to being high in the rankings around issues of social welfare and education. This study, based on 2 years worth of new federal data, disaggregates low-income children from children in general. In essence, it is doing what No Child Left Behind did to schools: showing that even the most high-performing school may not necessarily be meeting the needs of all its populations.

Here is a a short article on the study from USA Today Since the full study is not yet available there are many unanswered questions about the "hows" and "whats" of the actual data collection and methods used, but this is plenty to get up to speed on what people are buzzing about. When the full report is released, we'll be sure to link to it on a future post and delve into the details behind our startling new rank. For now, this news is obviously disappointing, but also a rallying cry for all the work we know needs to be done.