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7/6/2006 12:00 AM Star Tribune Editorial Watch the trend lines on children's well-being. Five years ago, the respected annual Kids Count assessment of children's well-being ranked Minnesota the second-best place to grow up among the 50 states. The latest edition, released last week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, puts Minnesota in fourth place. We'll leave for politicians to point out that Minnesota is still scored as a better place to grow up than 46 other states. (That's bound to be how these data are greeted by one or more incumbents near you.) Where Minnesota ranks on a well-documented indicator such as this one is important. But what should be of greater interest, especially in an election year, is the direction of a state's trend lines. That reveals whether or not a state's policies are effective in improving the lot of its children. On six of the 10 key Kids Count measures, Minnesota's numbers have been moving in the wrong direction since 2000 (see the adjacent list.) In two categories, the wrong-way change has been precipitous: The number of children living in poverty in Minneota is up 22 percent, and the number of teens neither in school nor the workforce is up 50 percent. To those reasons to be concerned, add a third: In April, Children's Defense Fund Minnesota reported that between 2001 and 2004, the number of uninsured Minnesota children under age six grew by 11,000, or more than 10 per day. The question that belongs before Minnesota voters this fall isn't where this state has been. It's where Minnesota is headed -- and whether that's the direction voters want their state to go. The downhill slide since 2000 detected in the Kids Count report coincides with a decline in state investment in education and social services as a percentage of this state's total personal income in the same years. The prosperity that was promised when the Legislature cut taxes in 1999, 2000 and 2001 evidently has not made life better for Minnesota's poor children. Voters are right to ask this year's candidates for governor and the Legislature how they plan to turn the trend lines back in the right direction. http://www.startribune.com/561/story/534800.html RELATED LINKS | ||||||||||||||||||||
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