(Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent)
Maine ranked lowest among New England states in a nationwide survey of children’s well-being released Monday.
The 2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book, conducted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, lists Maine 15th of all states, dropping from its previously consistent ranking of 12th in 2023 and in 2022.
In contrast, two other New England states hold the two top spots for overall child well-being, with New Hampshire ranking first, followed by Massachusetts.
Maine scored high when it came to family and community, however that achievement was not enough to offset the Pine Tree State’s increasingly low rankings for the economic well-being of children, their health and education.
Family and community
Maine placed fifth in the family and community category, which can be attributed to decreases in the percentages of children living in high-poverty areas, single-parent households and teen births.
The latest survey, which largely relies on 2022 data, found that the percentage of children living in high-poverty areas was 2%, down from 4% before the COVID-19 pandemic. The percentage of children in single-parent families also saw a slight decrease during approximately the same time frame, from 33% to 32%, as did the number of teen births, from nine out of 1,000 births to eight.
The percentage of children in families where the head of household lacks a high school diploma remained steady compared with 2019, at 4%.
Economic well-being
Maine ranked 13th when it came to the economic well-being of children, though saw some improvement in this category compared with previous years.
Maine saw a 2% decrease in the percentage of children living in poverty since 2019, now at 12%.
Wider improvements were seen during that time frame in the percentage of children whose parents lack secure employment (27% to 24%) and children living in households with a high housing cost burden (23% to 21%).
However, the state saw a slight increase in the percentage of teens not in school and not working, from 5% to 6%.
Health
Maine placed 18th for the health of children, with increases in child and teen deaths.
In 2019, the state had 22 deaths per 100,000 children. That rate has grown since — to 24 per 1,000 in 2020, 26 in 2021 and jumping to 30 in 2022, which is the latest data used in the survey.
Beyond these statistics, the systemic failures in Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) are well documented. The recent death of a six-week-old whose family was previously involved with the child welfare system reignited a years-long discussion around the systemic failures in OCFS and the burden placed on caseworkers, who reported being understaffed and overworked.
While child welfare was a focus of much debate in Augusta during the latest legislative session, the Legislature adjourned without concrete solutions. On the final day of session, an oversight panel suggested more than two dozen reforms to target systemic problems such as a lack of access to the legal resources and mental health supports.
Many of these recommendations could be implemented by the agency without legislative action, though would still take time to yield tangible results.
In the nationwide survey, the rate of low birth-weight babies in Maine also increased slightly since 2019, which means more infants are at higher risk of developmental problems and short- and long-term disabilities.
Maine did see an area of improvement when it came to child health, a slight decrease in the percentage of children without health insurance, from 6% to 5%. The report also factored into its health ranking the percentage of children and teens, from ages 10 to 17, who are overweight or obese and found that percentage in Maine to be 30%, though not comparable across previous years due to methodology changes.
Education
Maine’s lowest ranking was education, coming in at 37th among all 50 states. The state saw worse scores in each of the categories that make up the education ranking when compared with pre-pandemic survey data.
The survey found that 59% of three and four-year-olds in Maine were not in school, an increase from previous years and higher than the national average. While participation in public preschool in Maine has returned to pre-pandemic levels, access to preschool varies widely by county.
Maine is in the midst of restructuring how preschool special education is organized, shifting the responsibility from the quasi-government agency Child Development Services to public school districts. The effectiveness of this switch will not be seen for several years and comes after decades of dissatisfaction with inadequate staffing, resources and comparably poor performance in helping young children with disabilities compared to other states.
For children who are already in school in Maine, more are failing to reach proficiency in core subject areas.
The percentage of fourth graders not proficient in reading increased from 64% in 2019 to 71% in 2022, and the percentage of eighth graders not proficient in math for those years increased from 66% to 76%. Both of these latest percentages are higher than the national average.
More high schoolers in Maine are also not graduating on time according to the survey. The percentage of high school students not graduating on time increased from 13% in the 2018-19 school year to 14% in the 2020-21 school year. However, Maine is not alone in this regard, as the national average from 2020-21 is also 14%.
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