State of US education declining
A new report issued by Save the Children, State of the World’s Mothers ;;;;: Investing in the Early Years, o;ers a disturbing glimpse of the state of education in the US. While education within the US varies greatly, in comparison to the rest of the industrialized world American children are increasingly disadvantaged in terms of their educational development.
In a ranking of ;; developed countries, students in the US have slipped to number ;; in the rate of high school graduation—down from ;rst place ;; years ago. In ;;;;, the US was tied for ;rst place in the world for the number of young adults with a college degree. By ;;;;, it had fallen to ;;th place. ;e US has one of the highest college-dropout rates in the industrialized world: ;; percent. And a whopping ;; percent of fourth-graders in America’s public schools are not reading at grade level.
;e report includes an “Early Childhood Development Report Card” of ;; wealthy countries that measured factors linked to educational success, such as parental leave, child poverty, access to health care, and preschool enrollment. Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, France, and Norway ranked best, each meeting at least ; of ;; benchmarks. ;e US, which met only three benchmarks, ranked near the bottom, above only Australia, Canada, and Ireland.
Within the US, education levels show a troubling degree of inconsistency. As part of their report, Save the Children developed a “School Success Index for the
United States,” which rates early-childhood conditions
in ;; states and the District of Columbia, and shows
where kids are most likely to succeed or fail in school.
Rated factors included preschool enrollment, early
reading to children in
the home, and maternal
emotional health.
Overall, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Massachu-
setts, Vermont, and Maine
ranked ; through ;,
respectively. At the
other end of the scale,
Alabama, Arizona,
Mississippi, Nevada, and
New Mexico ranked lowest.
;e Save the Children
report’s policy recommendations include: putting money into improved health care for mothers and young children, providing coaching in parenting, paying particular attention to the educational needs of children a;ected by AIDS and natural disasters, and, for the US in particular, greatly increasing government support of Early Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant.
To read the full report, see www.savethechildren.org/ publications/state-of-the-worlds-mothers-report/state-worlds-mothers-report-;;;;.pdf.
PHOTOSTOGO.COM
—Laura Andre
In April, Idaho enacted a law allowing licensure and regulation of Certified
Professional Midwives (CPMs), making it the
26th state to legally authorize them. Unlike
Certified Nurse-Midwives, who practice primarily in hospitals and are legally authorized to provide care in all 50 states, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and American
Samoa, CPMs specialize in out-of-hospital births,
and have—until now—been legally recognized only in some states. The legislative advance in Idaho was orchestrated in part by the Big Push for Midwives Campaign, a nationwide advocacy group working for the licensure and regulation of CPMs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. For more information, see http://thebigpushformidwives.org.
Idaho passes midwifery law
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