Child Indicators

Governors, state legislators and state administrators want better data on the children in their states so that they can track progress towards improved outcomes for children. This data can help determine which programs are achieving their goals and should be retained, and which are not and should be revised or eliminated. Policy makers also want state specific data so they can identify critical gaps in child well-being in their state that need to be addressed.

For example, the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative, which included the governors, policy makers and advocates from 17 states, found that for every area where they identified core indicators where data already was available, they also had emerging indicators where the data was not yet regularly collected and available. The lack of these indicators makes it much harder for states to adopt and modify policies intended to prepare children for school. The 17 states in that study are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Child advocates need better data on the children in their states so that they can monitor how children are doing, identify effective programs that should be continued, and identify critical gaps in child well-being that need to be addressed. By tracking and reporting on key data, along with recommending policy solutions and improvements, they can help policymakers increase the well-being of children in their states.

Read Archived Letters of Support

National organizations support better state level data because they understand how much policy for the well-being of children is made at the state level and how much child well-being varies by state. They also can use good state level data to help determine which states are effectively addressing critical areas of child well-being, and thus select which states should serve as models for other states.

Foundations want better data because they understand the importance of good indicator data at the state level for the development and tracking of effective child policy. Often they also support the work of policy makers and child advocates as they pursue and implement programs designed to improve child well-being; state level indicator data can help foundations determine whether the work they support is effective.