When Rhode Island Kids Count released its annual factbook in early May, it painted a broad picture of the state of children in Rhode Island, from school achievement to health care and poverty, and much more. In all, Kids Count measured the health and well-being of children in 70 different areas.
WhatsUpNewp took a deep dive into a number of those areas, focusing on the communities in Newport County – Jamestown, Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Portsmouth, and Tiverton.
What we found was not surprising. School achievement follows the health and wellbeing of the children and their families. Communities with a high level of poverty, housing issues, multilingual concerns reflect significantly on school achievement. The same goes for students from higher income communities, with fewer housing and health issues, which reflects higher educational achievement.
What follows are highlights from the Kids Count Fact Book, listing findings for each community, along with the overall results from the state of Rhode Island. There’s much more that can be found at the Kids Count website: https://rikidscount.org/.
Here’s what we looked at:
