By Radhika Sarin, Principal Researcher

Over and over again, we hear the phrase "our children are our future"-so often, in fact, that it could be filed away as yet another cliché. But at Population Connection, we realize that how we treat our children shows much about how we treat our future. This Report Card offers a glimpse of the health and well-being of some 20 million children living in America's largest cities. The Report Card covers every city in the United States with a population of 100,000 or more, as well as the largest cities in those states without any cities of this size - 239 cities in all.

Among other things, this study aims to stir discussion. How well are our children's needs being met? More importantly, what can be done to improve our record? The Report Card is not a relocation guide. Rather, it is a tool for change, providing information that concerned citizens can use to identify conditions that need improvement in their communities.

As in years past, the Report Card looks at many aspects of "kid-friendliness," including health conditions, safety, education, and environmental cleanliness. In the past, we received many comments about the importance of "intangibles." Is there a feeling of community in a city? Are the people friendly? How diverse is that city? What about culture? Intangibles, as one youngster said, reflect "how much fun I have!" While it is true that some things just cannot be measured, the new "Community Life" category in this year's Report Card includes new information on two very important aspects of children's lives: libraries and parks. Although this data was difficult to obtain (the only way we could find out about parks was by making, literally, hundreds of phone calls), we felt it was important for understanding children's lives outside of home and school.

The Health Improvement Grade is another new area we looked at. This category reflects the effort cities have made in reducing the percent of births to teens, infant mortality, and the percent of low weight births. Cities such as Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Detroit have made remarkable strides in improving health quality over the past eight years despite ranking low in the overall study. In fact, 18 of the 25 Major Cities have reduced the percent of births to teens, ranging from Miami's 1.2 percent decrease to San Francisco's 25.6 percent decrease.

The Problems of Limited Data

While the Report Card provides us with data in several key areas, there is much that we don't know, merely because it hasn't been documented. For nearly a decade now, we've been pointing out the lack of environmental monitoring under regulated standards and procedures. Water monitoring is one example. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires all public water systems to monitor water quality for coliform bacteria, contaminant levels, and water treatment chemical byproducts. Unfortunately, SDWA violations are self-reported, and not all cities monitor and report violations with equal frequency. It is difficult, therefore, to make accurate comparisons between cities' water quality because some cities either fail to examine water quality or fail to report violations. Children are especially vulnerable to environmental contaminants since they eat, drink, and breathe more per body weight than adults; without crucial public health data, however, it is difficult to say how many children are at risk.

Our knowledge of what is happening in the education sector at the city-level is equally limited. Important indicators, such as the drop-out rate and the preprimary enrollment rate, are collected every ten years through the Census. Day by day, Census 2000 data is being released, but most city-level data will not be available until 2002-just in time for us to start working on our next Report Card! This year, Population Connection's options were to use city-level data from a decade ago or state-level data from recent years. Think about how different your life was ten years ago, and you will understand why we chose to report state-level data. It is distressing to realize that current policies are being developed based on the situation ten years ago.

Those of you who were with us for the 1999 Report Card will also notice that a very important indicator-the percentage of children living in poverty-is missing from our study this time. Again, this indicator is only measured at the city-level every ten years, and we are anxiously awaiting Census 2000 data. At the national level, the poverty rate for children stood at 18 percent in 1998-a rate closer to that of 1980 rather than the early 1990s, when it reached a high of 22 percent in 1993.

Clearly, we have much work to do in the area of data collection and monitoring indicators pertaining to children's well-being. The list continues-access to child care, instances of abuse, the number of homeless children, and so on. Not only should this data be collected, it needs to be collected by national agencies-using consistent standards and methods. We need an accurate description of children all over the nation: Cindy in Sioux Falls, Bobby in Berkeley, and Peter in Jersey City.

We think that the Report Card is a good place to start, and we can certainly take action about what we do know. On the poster, we provide information about the median city in each group of cities, as well as the United States average for the indicators in the study. How a city scored, compared to the median city and the United States average, indicates how well that city is providing for its children.

What You Can Do

Before you put the poster up on your wall, turn it over and read about some kid-friendly initiatives across the country. Who says it's impossible to get involved? Support an innovative program or start your own! Volunteer for an after-school program. Mentor an adolescent. There are countless ways in which you can engage young people in productive activities. One person can make the difference of a lifetime.

Educational quality, access to health care, job security, a clean environment? These are universal challenges to every community. We hope that the Report Card will provide insight into how well communities are meeting these challenges and where improvement must occur.