State Stix                                                              

A D-minus.

That is the assessment of the condition of Illinois children and their families by Voices for Illinois Children. Voices, a child-advocacy group, recently published Illinois Kids Count, 1993: Imagine the Possibilities, its second annual look at the well-being of kids in Illinois. It is the source of the graphics on these pages and of other disturbing statistics about childhood in Illinois:

• The high school graduation rate dropped 3 percent between 1985 and 1990. • About 400,000 Illinois children have no health insurance. • The number of women who did not receive first trimester prenatal care — a contributor to low birthweight babies — rose 8 percent between 1980 and 1991. • Nearly one in eight births in 1991 was to an unwed, teenage mother. • Nearly one in every five Illinois children lives below the poverty line. "While the number of Illinois children is shrinking," the Voices report states, "the proportion of children facing the risk of educational failure, violence and economic hardship is increasing."

The report also noted that Illinois ranks 38th among the states in several measures related to education, health and economic opportunity.

Illinois Kids Count contains a "Kids First Agenda" that, among other things, recommends increased state support for schools and early childhood education programs, expanded health care for low- and moderate-income assist welfare recipients make the move to families and improved services for troubled work by expanding health care, child care and families. The report also urges that the state education benefits.

32/December 1993/Illinois Issues

The D-minus grade given to the condition of Illinois children is the same as in Voices' first report card of a year ago. But the Edgar administration says the organization has not fairly assessed the state's performance in meeting the needs of children.

"I'd give the report an F for fairness," says Mike Lawrence, press secretary to Gov. Jim Edgar. He says Voices "made no mention of steps we've taken to address the problems of children." Lawrence notes that the Voices report calls for complying with court orders on child welfare services without mentioning that the administration had nearly doubled spending for the Department of Children and Family Services in compliance with a court order.

Lawrence also points to Edgar's Healthy Moms/Healthy Kids initiative and the governor's support for the income tax surcharge that increased school funding as evidence of state efforts to address many of the concerns raised in the Voices study.

"Many of their numbers reflect catastrophic changes in society, especially in the inner city," says Lawrence. "Those problems are not going to be reversed overnight." Donald Sevener

December 1993/Illinois Issues/33