The Data Book also highlights major disparities among U.S. children along racial and ethnic lines. Even as children of color grow in numbers, representing the majority of U.S. births, they continue to lag behind their white counterparts by almost every measure:
In 2010, American Indian (49 percent) and black (49 percent) children were nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts (25 percent) to have no parent with secure employment.
While 58 percent of white fourth-graders had yet to achieve reading proficiency in 2011, more than 80 percent of their Latino, African-American and American Indian classmates lagged in this area.
While only 6 percent of white children had no health insurance in 2010, more than twice as many American Indian and Latinos shared the same plight, at 18 and 14 percent, respectively.
In 2010, 66 percent of black youths lived in single-parent families, exceeding their American Indian (52 percent), Latino (41 percent), white (24 percent) and Asian (16 percent) peers.
I am not at all sure of what needs to be done, but there is real room for improvement.
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