The main event will be held on Wednesday,  October 13th at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.  Child advocates will meet for a day-long session to discuss the recent  severe budget cuts and their impact on critical services for children.  In addition to briefings by state leaders and policy experts (including yours truly), participants will develop guiding principles that policymakers can use to measure how legislation might affect Oklahoma’s children. Registration for the Forum is $75; you can register online here.

The Children’s Legislative Forum will be preceded by two events on Tuesday, October 12th:

• In the afternoon (time and location TBA), OICA will host offer a briefing on the 2010 Kids Count databook providing the latest data on child well-being in Oklahoma.  This event will be free but pre-registration is required.
• At 7:00 p.m., OICA will co-host a debate featuring the State Schools Superintendent candidates along with the UCO College of Education and Professional Studies, the Early Childhood Association of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Child Care Resource and Referral Association, and the Oklahoma Afterschool Network.   The program will be held at UCO; room to be announced.  Free of charge.

Anyone who wants to better understand the challenges facing Oklahoma children and families and make a difference in shaping future policy decisions should be sure to attend the Fall Forum.

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A partnership between OICA and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the KIDS COUNT data center provides comprehensive online national, state, and community level data and information on the well-being of children.  The site tracks 82 indicators of child well-being in such categories as education, health and safety, economic well-being, family and community, risky behaviors, and general demographics. It allows for easy comparisons of Oklahoma to other states and of each of the state’s 77 counties. From the main Oklahoma page, you can generate ranking tables, maps and trend graphs for each of the indicators that can then be incorporated into reports, presentations and grant applications. Here is one example, a map displaying the Change in Teen Birth Rates, by county, between 2005 and 2007:

In addition to introducing the Data Center website, OICA also made available the 2009 Oklahoma KidsCount factbook, which can be read and downloaded online. The factbook spotlights twelve key indicators of child well-being, including birthweight, birth to teens, child abuse and neglect, high school dropouts, violent crime arrests, and child and youth deaths. This year’s data found that Oklahoma has made progress compared to the mid- or late-1990s on nine of the twelve indicators, most notably in a nearly 50 percent drop in the rate of youth violent crime arrests.

The KIDS COUNT data center offers an invaluable resource to help us identify where we are doing well and where the most significant problems remain. In these times of growing needs and scarce resources, the importance of good data has never been greater.

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Back in March, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released 2008 data on state personal income, which is the most widely used measure of a state’s relative prosperity. We took note of it at the time in our April Numbers You Need bulletin, focusing on Oklahoma’s rank as the state with the fourth strongest rate of growth in  personal income (5.4 percent) for the year.

Perhaps the bigger story, which hasn’t received much attention,  is that the state’s strong economic growth over the course of this decade has propelled Oklahoma from near the bottom to the middle rungs of states in per capita personal income. As recently as 2000, Oklahoma ranked 42nd in state per capita personal income at $23,582. Between 2000 and 2008, Oklahoma’s per capita personal income jumped 51.2 percent, fourth among the states behind only Wyoming, Louisiana,  and North Dakota (all, not coincidentally, states that have shared in the boom in mineral prices of recent years). As of 2008, Oklahoma ranks 28th with per capita personal income of $36,899, which is less than $3,000 below the national average of  $39,751. Oklahoma ranks above every southern state except Florida and Texas, and has surged past not only declining Rust Belt states like Ohio (32nd), Michigan (34th)and Indiana (39th), but also such seemingly dynamic southern and western states as Oregon (31st), North Carolina (36th), Georgia (40th) and Arizona (42nd).

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if Oklahoma’s newfound prosperity is translating into stronger outcomes on the major indicators of personal and social well-being. Oklahoma continues to rank high on way too many bad things – people living in poverty, chronic health conditions, suicides, teen pregnancy, child abuse, incarceration – and low on too many good things – overall health status, percentage of residents with health insurance, college graduates, per pupil student expenditures. As of 2006, we ranked 46th among the states in per capita spending on state and local government, which hampers our ability to invest in those public structures – strong schools and universities, economic infrastructure, quality health care and mental health services – that can help us reach our common goals. This, in turn, reflects a strong aversion to taxes – in 2006, we ranked 42nd in the nation in total state and local taxes per capita and as a share of personal income.

Even if 2008 marked the peak of the state’s economic boom, it’s likely we will remain in the middle rung of states in personal income and perhaps even move further up the rankings as other states struggle with a deeper recession. It may take time for this reality of Oklahoma as something other than a poor state to set in and for us to shed old ways of thinking and abandon old excuses. But as it does, we hope that all of us can seize the opportunity to imagine and implement new policies and new approaches that will ensure that our growing wealth leads to more economic opportunities, better education and health, and greater security for all Oklahomans.

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