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Southern counties need help

Sometimes we forget – or choose not to remember -that there are several West Virginias. Our area is just part of the Mountain State. Other regions are quite different.

Here in northern West Virginia, we take reasonably good care of our children, according to the West Virginia Kids Count Databook.

Kids Count measures the wellbeing of children, based on indicators including health, education and economic factors.

Look at the map above. Counties where children are doing comparatively well are in light and dark blue. Those where they’re not faring as well are in pink and red.

It jumps right out at you, doesn’t it? Kids in northern West Virginia are well-off, comparatively. Those in the southern counties aren’t. It’s easy for local people not to understand the dramatic differences. When did you last spend enough time in McDowell County to notice how the kids there seemed to be doing? Here, they’re around us all the time.

Consider just a few comparisons between counties, based on Kids Count’s statistics from 2014:

In Ohio County, the percentage of babies with low birth weights is 7.2. In McDowell County, it’s 12.8 percent.

In Marshall County, 77.6 percent of eighth graders taking a standardized test scored below proficient in mathematics. In Logan County, it was 88.8 percent (terrible performances on the last round of standardized tests were fairly uniform around the state).

And here’s a key number: In Brooke County, the percentage of children under 6 who live in families with parents in the workforce was 61.9. In Mingo County, the number is 44.4 percent.

And that’s the story. Lots of people in the southern counties can’t find jobs. That has an enormous impact on the well-being of children.

Kids Count has launched a campaign, “Race to Great,” that officials hope can push West Virginia way up in the children’s well-being rankings. It has four components:

– Establishing an state income tax earned income credit to make it less likely children will live in poverty.

– Providing high-quality pre-school for all 3-year-olds.

– Increasing the tobacco tax to reduce the number of pregnant women who smoke.

– Implementing a comprehensive health and sex education program in schools, to reduce the number of babies born to teenagers.

Legislators may be about to do No. 3 – not so much for health reasons but because the state needs money.

No. 1 is unlikely to happen, for that very reason.

No. 3 may well be doable.

No. 4 would be an uphill fight in counties where many parents simply don’t want teachers talking to their kids about sex.

Clearly, we have to do something, and it needs to be focused in the southern counties. Those kids may not be ours – but folks, they’re children and they’re West Virginians. That’s all we ought to need to know.

Myer can be reached at mmyer@theintelligencer.net.

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