GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Every year the Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) and Kids Count in Michigan produce their annual Kids Count in Michigan Data Book. The goal is to get a snapshot of the trends and data surrounding the well-being of our state's children to provide policy solutions that will hopefully improve our kids' lives.
"In Michigan, we look at all the counties and the cities, and every year, we produce a data report showing kind of trends in child well-being, how they're faring, what's improved, what's gotten worse over time," Kids Count Michigan Director, Anne Kuhnem told FOX17.
And this year's numbers revealed some good news like, statewide housing security for children improving compared to previous data, and some things that could be better, with the poverty rate being a little below pre-pandemic levels.
"We see drops in child poverty. We also see more children who are living in secure households in terms of, housing security. But in some areas, we do see trends worsening," Kuhnem told FOX17. "So for example, our lead testing was really hit hard during the pandemic. We saw fewer children making those visits to their doctors in order to get tested."
They also saw drops in education data— fewer kids enrolled in preschool and literacy took a hit during the pandemic— but only time will tell what impact that could have.
"Third grade reading scores really did drop during the pandemic," noted Kuhnem. "But already we're starting to see some of those trends kind of pick up or turn around a little bit compared to their like lowest point."
According to the MLPP, this year's count compared data from 2017 to 2022/2023, and as a state there were improvements in 13 of 19 key areas, including a decline in infant mortality and an increase in students graduating on time.
Several West Michigan Counties saw a drop in childhood poverty rates:
County 2017 2022 Allegan 19.1% 14.7% Kent 18.7% 15.1% Ottawa 10.0% 5.7%
But — in addition to what's stated above — some of the trends are moving in the wrong direction; like a decline in children receiving cash assistance despite a rise in kids ages K-12 categorized as economically disadvantaged from 50.3% in 2017 to 53.7% in 2022.
This mixed bag of positive and negative data is nothing new and neither is the desired outcome. Kuhnem told us that they do this count every year with the hope of bringing some positive change to the lives of children and young adults in the Great Lakes State.
"I think that everyone has a role to play in making sure that, you know, the issues that they care about are being addressed and every, every one of us can be an advocate for children, right?" said Kuhnem. "Children, they don't vote, they don't get to, you know, make phone calls to their to their elected officials, but that's something that we can do. So if there's, you know, a particular data point, or something that you notice in your community in terms of, you know, what your school is funding, that those are things that you know, if you have an idea or an action that you want to see, that that that parents absolutely have a role to play."
You can take a look at the numbers, county by county, in the MLPP interactive map here.
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