California leaders say they care about kids. Yet we have nation’s highest child poverty rate | Opinion

Throughout the past year, while the political climate seemed to change by the minute, one thing unfortunately remained consistent: California’s poor national standing in supporting our kids.

Children Now’s 2024 Report Card, which grades the state on its performance supporting kids across a wide range of issues, made this painstakingly clear. Across the nation, California has the highest child poverty rate and ranks last in parents’ ability to get their kids mental health care. We are second to last in the percentage of kids receiving a health checkup; we’re near the bottom in math and reading achievement as well as adult and student ratios in our public schools.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2024 data confirm this poor standing: California currently ranks 35th among all states in child well-being. For more than a decade, we have never ranked higher than 33rd. The list of areas we don’t stack up in support of kids is unfortunately large and diverse, like California itself.

While this year’s state budget did well not to exacerbate this problem (state leaders ultimately rejected proposed cuts and preserved much funding for kids), we stayed stagnant, failing to make progress to address existing issues. We need to truly put kids first when additional funds are available. And that new normal needs to start this January with the governor’s upcoming budget proposal.

Why does California rank so low?

For decades, our state budgets have consistently sacrificed children’s well-being in favor of other priorities. Instead of asserting our commitment to kids and our collective future, education, childcare and other critical kids’ programs have taken the biggest hits during down years. That is simply not the story for most other government programs, where California consistently ranks very high nationally in per capita spending.

Kids are simply less of a priority in California than they are in most other states across the country. This truth contradicts the proclamation of many state leaders that we should set an example for and lead the nation. With kids, unfortunately it’s the other way around — we need to change our ways, and we must follow the example of other states. Children Now’s Report Card highlights how California spends 2.98% of gross domestic product on Transitional Kindergarten through 12th grade education, while the national average is 3.60%. Pennsylvania, for example, spends 4.31%, and Illinois spends 4.34%.

A solvable problem

Change can start next year, with state leaders dedicating new available funds to childcare, TK-12 and higher-education, youth in foster care, homeless youth and kids’ health. Without that commitment both now and through the rest of the decade, we will never catch up to the rest of the country. We have already heard about proposals to increase funding in next year’s budget for programs outside of the kids’ space, but not proposals to significantly increase funding for kids. That simply runs contrary to the data, which makes clear where we’re behind.

It’s critical for state leaders to hear that the desire to prioritize and support our kids is close to universal. This November, over 1,000 diverse organizations from all geographic regions of California joined together to urge the governor not to propose any cuts to kids in January and, instead, prioritize them with new funding, as part of a campaign through The Children’s Movement of California. When asked directly, almost every state leader will stress the critical importance of supporting our kids and their future. Yet, when our state budgets are finalized, our poor national ranking on kids remains.

This is the year that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature must show that our state is progressing toward a future where we are a leader on kids, not at the back of the pack. California has already proven it can sit high among the national rankings for per capita spending on many government programs. Now is the time for us to prove we can be there with kids.

This story was originally published December 19, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "California leaders say they care about kids. Yet we have nation’s highest child poverty rate | Opinion."