Tennessee's overall rank among states in child well-being is holding steady despite improvements in several areas, including students who stay in school, graduation rates and children who live in homes with parents who have high school diplomas, according to a new report.
The report - the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2018 Kids Count Data Book - released Wednesday ranks each state in four categories: economic well-being, education, health and, family and community.
Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama all rank in the bottom half of states in every category, but Tennessee state officials are celebrating the state's highest ranking - 27th in health.
"The state has put particular focus on infant health and on improvements in early education," said Rose Naccarato, Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth Kids Count director, in a statement.
"Tennessee's early adoption of expanded TennCare and CoverKids for children has contributed to a strong ranking on its health domain over the years. As other states have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, this advantage has waned. Though most low-income children still have access to TennCare or CoverKids, their parents are often unaware because they themselves are not eligible," she added.
Many of the state's trends follow national ones. The child poverty rate dropped to 19 percent for the nation this year, a statistic that has been on decline since the recession, though more than one-fifth of children in the region - one-fourth in Alabama - still live in poverty.
"A stronger economy is producing better outcomes for parents and their kids. The Data Book shows that about 1.6 million fewer children are living in poverty than five years ago, more parents are employed and fewer families are spending a disproportionate amount of their income on housing costs," according to the report.
Nationally, fewer teens are also leaving school to work and fewer children are living with unemployed parents in 2018, compared to previous years.
However, in Tennessee, 15 percent of children live in high-poverty areas, which indicates poverty has become more concentrated in areas, a trend also seen in Alabama and Georgia.
Naccarato also recognized some of the state's areas of weaknesses, such as the increase in babies born at low birth rates - 9.3 percent of babies, up from 9 percent in 2010, compared to the national rate of 8.2 percent of babies being born too small.
"One of Tennessee's lowest rankings continues to be for the percentage of babies born at a low birth weight," Naccarato said in a statement. "Over 9 percent of Tennessee babies are born weighing less than 5 pounds. Many risk factors for low birth weight are known, but they can be difficult to address." Among these risks is substance abuse during pregnancy.
Tennessee, which is striving to be one of the fastest-improving states when it comes to education, still ranks 35 out of 50, but both the number of fourth-graders not reading proficiently and eighth-graders not performing on grade level in math have decreased. The overall graduation rate for the state is at 88 percent, compared to 84 percent nationally.
"In education, Tennessee's fourth- and eighth-graders saw improvement in reading and math, respectively, outpacing the national average. When many states were cutting school funding, Tennessee continued its steady increases through the Basic Education Program, though the state still ranks in the bottom 10 in per-child spending," according to a news release.
However, some counties fall short of those statistics. In Hamilton County, only about 85 percent of students graduate high school on time, compared to 81.5 percent in Davidson County (Nashville), 77.2 percent in Shelby County (Memphis) and 90 percent in Knox County (Knoxville).
The state of Tennessee broke down the 2018 Kids Count report for all 95 counties in the state. The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private philanthropy based in Baltimore that has provided grants for federal agencies, states, counties, cities and neighborhoods and worked on informing policies since 1948.
"The Kids Count Data Book provides a picture of where Tennessee is and where it needs to focus more attention, and it provides data to inform changes states may want to make for improvements in the future," according to The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, the state's Kids Count affiliate.
Contact staff writer Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757- 6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.