As we’ve noted in this space before, Missouri is a dangerous place to be a kid these days, thanks to far-right political policy agendas that slight health care and education funding and outright reject rational gun restrictions.
The latest evidence of that disturbing status comes in a new national report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranking states by the well-being of their children. It should be required reading for state political leaders who are currently spending down crucial state resources for things like privately owned sports stadiums and high-end tax cuts while Missouri children continue being prioritized less.
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As reported by the Missouri Independent, the Foundation’s annual assesses each state based on four metrics regarding kids’ welfare: health, economic well-being, education, and family and community. In all, Missouri lands in the bottom third, based on 2023 data.
Missouri is in especially bad shape in terms of kids’ health, ranking 35th among the 50 states generally and 40th in the specific sub-metric of child and teen deaths.
That’s directly attributable in part to the state’s higher-than-average rate of firearms deaths. Missouri has among the most lax gun laws in the country, with no requirements for background checks, conceal-carry permits, red-flag laws or other commonsense restrictions.
On educational well-being, Missouri ranks 33rd, in part because 77% of the state’s eighth graders weren’t proficient at math, the report found.
At a time when Missouri should be making increased school funding a top budgetary priority, Gov. Mike Kehoe tried to trim $300 million from the state Board of Education’s request this year. That money was ultimately restored, but $50 million more is still earmarked for the state’s private school voucher program — public money that could be funding public schools.
There is one bright spot in the data, though even that one stands as an indictment of the reactionary politics that grip our state: Children’s health insurance coverage has greatly improved thanks to the state’s recent expansion of Medicaid.
That expansion came after the Republican-controlled Legislature refused for years to implement it as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act. And even after the state’s voters finally overruled that obstinance by referendum, the Legislature attempted for a time to defund that mandate.
All politicians pay lip service to the well-being of their constituents’ children. It’s up to the voters to decide if they’re putting public resources where their rhetoric is. In Missouri, the evidence continues to suggest otherwise.
