Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Dropout rate climbs in Ohio, Ky.
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The high school dropout rate, a major predictor of children's well-being as adults, climbed in Ohio and Kentucky but dropped in Indiana from 1985 to 1996, according to a major study that will be released today.
The annual “Kids Count Data Book” from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that 14 percent of Kentucky teens (ages 16-19) were dropouts in 1996, giving the state the 49th-worst rate in the country. Ohio's rate was 9 percent, 22nd in the nation and up from 7 percent in 1985. Indiana's rate, 6 percent in 1996, was the nation's sixth-best.
Dropout rate is one of 10 indicators measured annually in the “Data Book,” which states that the U.S. economic boom has left one in seven children behind and facing reduced opportunities to succeed as adults.
“While success is never guaranteed in life, we have to work to see that more kids have an honest chance to achieve it,” said Douglas W. Nelson, president of the Casey Foundation. The Baltimore-based charitable organization is dedicated to improving the lives of disadvan taged children.
Thanks to a program for teen mothers at Brighton Center, Northern Kentucky's largest social service agency, a Newport woman has a better shot at success. Melissa Duffield, 19, mother of a 13-month-old daughter, will receive her GED this month and is looking forward to studying nursing.
Ms. Duffield was a junior at Newport High School when she had her daughter. Brighton Center's New Chance Program allowed her to continue her studies, learn additional parenting and job readiness
skills, and place her daughter, Ciara Daniels, in an on-site child-care center.
“I don't want her to go through the things I did,” Ms. Duffield said. “I want to get her the things I wanted. My education is the only way for that to happen.”
The Casey Foundation has created a “vulnerability index” of seven family risk factors and uses a threshold of four or more to identify children who are at the highest risk of failure as adults.
The risk factors are:
• Child is living with one parent.
• Household head is a high school dropout.
• Family income is below poverty.
• Child is living with parent(s) who do not have steady, full-time employment.
• Family is receiving welfare.
• Child has no health insurance.
More than a quarter of U.S. teens (ages 16-19) with four or more of these family risk factors were high school dropouts in 1998, compared with 1 percent of children with none of them, according to “Kids Count.”
Nationally, 9.2 million children — the one in seven — suffer from four or more of the factors at home.
• In Kentucky, 17 percent of children are at greater risk with four or more indicators.
• Ohio's 14 percent matches the national rate.
• In Indiana, 9 percent are at risk.
The Tristate reflected the nation's 31 percent reduction in the infant mortality rate. The U.S. rate in 1996 was 7.3 deaths per 1,000 live births.
• Ohio (7.7) declined 25 percent.
• Kentucky (7.5) dropped 33 percent.
• Indiana (8.7) dropped 20 percent but still ranked 43rd-worst in the country.
The percentage of households with children headed by a single parent increased nationwide, from 22 percent in 1985 to 27 percent in 1996. That trend, too, was mirrored in Kentucky (19 percent to 25 percent) and Ohio (20 to 26). Indiana stayed at 22 percent.
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