Jan 24, 2009
They’re not the worst—they’re just the first!

You can view the possible future of our nation by examining the present in California, the traditional trendsetter for the rest of us. Children NOW, “a national organization for people who care about children and want to ensure that they are the top public policy priority,” did just that recently. Their January 6, 2009, press release, “Investing in Children Key to Righting California Economy,” reveals their findings, and they are not pretty:

• A million California children are without health insurance. Every time one of them visits a hospital for a preventable ailment, it costs California $7,000, whereas it would cost only 17 percent of that ($1,200) to provide health coverage for each uninsured child.
• One in five (109,011) high school students in California dropped out in 2007.
• Sixteen percent of California adolescents are obese, costing Californians $7.7 billion annually.
• Fewer than half (48 percent) of California’s 3- and 4-year-olds attend any sort of preschool.
• Meanwhile, the state faces a growing shortage of college-educated workers, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. This means that the income gap between in-demand college grads and the excessive numbers of workers with a high school education or less will continue to grow. In 1980, that difference was 39 percent; in 2006, it was 86 percent.

Coming Soon to a State Near You! A population explosion of uninsured, uneducated, unfit, unemployable, and very unhappy young people. Be Prepared!
tags: Youth | Education | Health