State slips in national ranking of children's well-being

WASHINGTON — Fewer teenagers are having babies or dropping out of high school since the start of the decade, but a report says slightly more live in poverty with parents who don't work year-round.

The report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation charity said measures of health and income for children and teens are no longer improving as much as in the 1990s.

The findings were released Tuesday as part of the annual Kids Count report on the health and well-being of children and teens. The report measures each state's progress on 10 statistics, including infant mortality, poverty rates, single-parent families and babies born with low birth weights.

Washington state's overall rank was 17, a drop from last year's rating of 14th in the country.

Officials said Washington had the nation's lowest rate of low birth weights — 6 percent of births, compared with the 7.9 percent national average. The state claimed the top position despite showing a 7 percent increase in low birth weights from 2000 to 2003.

Washington's teen birth rate also dropped faster than the national average, the study said.

The state also saw a decline in the high-school-dropout rate among teens 16 and older, dropping from 9 percent in 2000 to 7 percent in 2004.

States in the Northeast and Upper Midwest scored the best. At the top: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Iowa. Southern states did the worst: Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina and Tennessee.