Report: Wisconsin tops list of worst states for black children
According to a study released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Wisconsin has the country’s worst disparities between children of color and white children.
The study, “Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children”, considered 12 major factors such as home life and socioeconomic status, educational access and children who grow up in two-parent homes.
The index scores for African American children should be considered a national crisis. Although they vary across states, regions and domains, in nearly all states, African American children face some of the biggest barriers to success. The states scoring the lowest in the index for African Americans are located in the south (e.g., Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina) and the Midwest (e.g.,Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois).
While great strides have been made, it will require public will and greater investments to overcome the vestiges of a system of institutional discrimination that still plague the region.
Black children in Wisconsin ranked 50th overall in all 12 categories measured by researchers, compared to the ranking of 10th for white youth in the state. Children of color in Wisconsin also face challenges of financial security at a much higher rate that their white peers, with just 20 percent of black youth living at a level of economic security.
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Will legislators ever focus more attention to inequities that studies like this highlight?
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