The country has made “incremental progress” reducing racial and ethnic disparities in early childhood, but stubborn differences remain for children of color, according to a new report released this week.
The findings come from the latest edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual “Race for Results” report, which examines data on well-being and milestones from birth to early adulthood.
The data shows improvement in nearly half those indicators since 2017, in part because of federal aid interventions during the coronavirus pandemic, such as the expanded child tax credit. But the new analysis also highlights continuing trouble spots nationally across all non-White racial and ethnic groups, such as eighth-grade math proficiency and the number of babies born below a normal birth weight.
“This report magnifies the issues we are trying to elevate for policymakers,” said Kim Perry, the executive director of DC Action, a youth advocacy organization that partnered with the Casey Foundation on the report. “Our Black and Brown children need continued support.”
The Casey Foundation introduced the Race for Results Index in 2014 as a tool to spotlight the “need to address a legacy of discriminatory practices and policies so all children can succeed.” It presents a score out of 1,000 based on how children from different groups hit certain measures strung across their first two decades, including high school graduation rate, two-parent households and proximity to a low-income neighborhood.
The closer a score is to 1,000, the greater likelihood a child from the group will meet those developmental milestones. The latest round of data is the first to examine the aftermath of the pandemic.
The D.C. numbers reflect the investment the city has made in the early years of a child’s life while also showing how that support evaporates as a child ages. D.C. has the country’s highest rate of 3- to 5-year-olds enrolled in prekindergarten, and enrollment is high across all race and ethnic groups — a result of the District’s free pre-K initiative.
“But then we see that promising start for young people falters as they get older,” Perry said. “Only 70 percent of D.C.’s Black 19- to 26-year-olds are in school or working. We should be doing better.”
In comparison, 97 percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders in D.C. in the same age group are working or employed, along with 91 percent of Latinos and 98 percent of White people. Perry believes that disparity can be tied to the District’s lack of strong workplace development programs.
Maryland and Virginia were both given index scores similar to the national number. For Virginia, Asian and Pacific Islanders received the highest index score, at 820, while Black children were at the lowest end, at 450. In Maryland, the Asian and Pacific Islander group again held the top index score (808), while Latinos had the lowest (434). According to the Casey Foundation, because of data limitations, D.C. and Puerto Rico were not given an index score.
“The report shows that we are doing a lot of things right in Maryland, but it also makes clear we have a lot of work to do to set up every child for success,” said Benjamin Orr, president of the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, an advocacy group also working with the Casey Foundation.
But Latino children are falling behind compared with the rest of Maryland, with Latino children having the lowest rate of pre-K enrollment, according to the report.
That disparity continues to play out in later standardized test scores. Although 31 percent of the state’s fourth-graders score at or above proficient in reading, only 15 percent of Latino children hit the milestone.
“None of us should be comfortable with such a clear disparity in our state,” Orr said.
