Black Kids Doing Better than ever

I just read this article from the Chicago Defender at http://www.chicagodefender.com. It is nice to see that there is some good news in the war for equatibility. I should point out that we still still have a long way to go, but progress is taking place. Anyway, I just discovered the Defender today, it has a lot of great articles surrounding the Black community as well as national and local news for the city of Chicago, where it is out of . What we need as a White community is a good source of info for the issues that are important to the black community. Obviously you can ask a member of the Black community, but remember the myth that White people have that a Black person represents their whole community. Don't assume that one person opinion, no matter how well informed he ar she is, can represent a whole race of people.

OK, enough of my own opinions heres the article. Enjoy.

New Report: Black children doing better than ever
but still trail white children in quality of life

Black children are doing better than ever, but still have a long way to go before closing the racialethnic gap in quality of life, according to a report released last month by the Foundation for Child Development. The report was the first ever to analyze and compare trends in the well-being of Black, white, and Hispanic children over a span of nearly two decades.
According to the report, all children experienced overall improvements in quality of life between 1985 and 2004. However, because improvements were greater for Black and Hispanic children during this time span - particularly after 1993 - the gap between them and whites is narrowing. But even if trends continue at their current pace, it will take at least an entire generation to fully eliminate these gaps.
“Even if we manage to continue to make progress towards closing the racial-ethnic gaps in children’s well-being at the same rate we have been, it would take another 18 years before Black children essentially caught up with white children,” Ruby Takanishi, president and CEO of FCD, said. “As a leading world superpower, America can do and should do better than this,” Takanishi continued. The report is entitled “Racial- Ethnic Inequality in Child Well- Being from 1985-2004: Gaps Narrowing but Persist.”
The researchers pulled data from several years of the FCD Child Well-Being Index-an annual analysis of the quality of life for all American children. It found that the gap in the overall quality of life separating Black children from white children narrowed by 26 percent- a change driven largely by promising improvements in safety, economic security and health for children of color.
A few other key findings of the report include:
- Education is stagnant: While Black children have made progress in many areas, substantial gaps in education between white and Black children have shown little improvement. The Black disadvantage in preschool enrollment has been eliminated, but the gaps in reading and math indicators have barely changed, and the same is true of the Black-white gap in completing a bachelor’s degree.
- Black children have seen the biggest improvement in their likelihood to commit a violent crime. While all children were much less likely to commit a violent crime in 2004 than they were in 1985, the likelihood of Black children committing a violent crime has decreased so significantly that it is now nearly on par with whites. Hispanic youths are less likely than whites to commit crimes or be victims.
- While the likelihood of all youth voting is up, Black youth are now more likely to vote than ever before, and the likelihood of Black youth voting is improving faster than it is for white children.
- The poverty gap between white children and Black children is closing. While rates of poverty are decreasing for all racial/ethnic groups, they are decreasing more rapidly for Black children than they are for white children.
- Black and Hispanic children also benefited from advances in the safetybehavioral domains including reduced cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and use of illicit drugs.
- Gaps in family economic well-being narrowed for both Black and Hispanic children as parental employment and health insurance coverage increased.
- Obesity rates rose less for Black and Hispanic children, although they remain higher than for whites.
- Both Black children and Hispanic children were advantaged compared to White children in the emotional/ spiritual domain.
- Even if Black and Hispanic children reached parity with the current level of well-being among white children, the overall well-being of all three groups would be substantially below the best that the U.S. has ever achieved on these measures, and levels of well-being currently experienced by international peers of the U.S.
“With the possibility of an economic recession, policies should aim to protect the economic security of American families, as well as key programs in health and education that support the largest number of children, especially those whose families earn below the median family income,” said Don Hernandez, researcher and author of the report.
“A number of the positive changes outlined in this report can be attributed to smart policies and an active community. If we want to continue to improve our children’s lives, we must continue push for this kind of smart policy.” Margaret Simms, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, which studies social policy, said that regardless of the progress reflected in the FCD report, “we shouldn’t become complacent.”
The Foundation for Child Development is a national, private philanthropy dedicated to the principle that all families should have the social and material resources to raise their children to be healthy, educated and productive members of their communities.
We believe that families, schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses and government at all levels share complementary responsibilities in the critical task of raising new generations.