For America to reach its full economic, democratic, and moral potential, all children must have the opportunity to grow, develop, and thrive. We know that what children need: strong families; environments that support healthy early brain development; and the opportunity to develop social and emotional skills. We know from decades of work in foster care and juvenile justice that children have a better chance to succeed when families stay together. And we know children need financial stability, which requires an inclusive economy that allows parents to secure meaningful work; to earn a stable and adequate income; to build assets and savings; and to balance work and family responsibilities.

Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, measures children’s progress on the national and state levels on key education, health, and economic milestones by racial and ethnic groups. The report’s index uses a composite score of these milestones on a scale of one (lowest) to 1,000 (highest) to make comparisons.

For Wisconsin to reach its full potential, every child, every family, and every community must thrive. For every child and family to be successful, it takes family supporting jobs, high quality
education, and targeted support for working parents. The problem is that those things are not equitably available across race and ethnicity nor are they available to immigrant families. The policies and systems that have been created make the things essential to well-being much more available to White children, families, and communities. Addressing barriers to success for children of color and children in immigrant families is particularly important right now, given that the future of Wisconsin will be much more diverse than it currently is. In fact, nearly all of the population growth in the foreseeable future will be from children of color and research has shown that the children of immigrants—the second generation—are among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the population

Download:

Kids Forward Executive Summary: Race for Results

Kids Forward Executive Summary: Children in Immigrant Families

Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children