The
best and worst counties for kids
Thursday, March 02, 2006 • BY
GEOFF MULVIHILL • Associated
Press
A pair of New Jersey counties that are
relatively remote and rural are the best and worst in the
state for children, according to a study released
yesterday.
Hunterdon County, with the lowest child
poverty rate, topped the list published by the Association
for Children of New Jersey, a child advocacy organization.
Cumberland County, deep in the state's southern reaches and
one of its poorest regions, was last.
The report used family income, child
mortality rates, standardized test scores and other factors
in its formula to find the best and worst places for
children.
Hunterdon, a county northwest of Trenton
where the pharmaceutical business is big, had the lowest
rate of children placed in state custody, the lowest rate of
juvenile arrests and the highest percentage of students
passing standardized tests in every grade.
Morris and Somerset counties, two other
outer-ring suburban counties without big cities, were next
on the list.
Cumberland County, situated along the
Delaware Bay where prisons have replaced the glass industry
as the dominant business, was last in test scores, had the
highest infant mortality rate, the highest percentage of
births to teens and was next-to-worst in the percentage of
children in poverty and unemployment.
The county was highest in percentage of
children in state-approved pre-kindergarten classes. But
that is mostly a function of poverty. The state provides the
schools for children in the state's poorest cities,
including Cumberland County's Bridgeton, Millville and
Vineland.
Three other largely rural southern New
Jersey counties -- Cape May, Atlantic and Salem -- finished
just above Cumberland.
"While these southern counties do have
some small cities, a lot of the poverty that infects child
well-being is found in the rural parts of the state -- a
fact that state and local policymakers must consider when
deciding how to improve conditions for all New Jersey
children," said Cecilia Zalkind, the association's executive
director.
Two sorts of counties finished in the
middle: more uniformly middle-class places such as Ocean and
Gloucester counties, and counties with a mix of big,
impoverished cities and affluent suburbs such as Camden,
Essex and Mercer counties.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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