Montana ranks 32nd nationally in the 2010 Kids Count Data Book, a state-by-state study on the well-being of America’s children released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count program.

The Data Book reveals that since 2000, Montana has improved on two of 10 measures affecting child well-being. Yet on five other measures, conditions worsened for Montana’s kids. Conditions remained unchanged on one measure, and two others were not comparable to previous years.

The 21st annual Data Book is complemented by the expanded online Kids Count Data Center, which contains hundreds of measures of child well-being and allows users to create maps and graphs of the data at the national, state, county and city levels. To access all 10 indicators and other data regarding Montana’s children and families, go to http://datacenter.kidscount.org/mt. “Our goal is to expand people’s understanding of the data and have them recognize that understanding data trends in child well-being, both good and bad, highlight challenges and opportunities for policy leaders, businesses and communities,” said Julie Ehlers, Montana Kids Count communications director. “These rankings provide necessary information to recognize areas of concern and hopefully promote positive change for Montana’s children and families.”

Areas of note in the data include:

• More high school drop-outs: The share of teens ages 16-19 in Montana who were not enrolled in school and were not high school graduates increased from 7 percent in 2000 to 9 percent in 2008. Montana tied for 44th nationally – among the bottom 10 states – on this indicator.

• Child poverty increases: In 2008, 21 percent of Montana’s children lived in poverty, up from 17 percent in 2000. Montana’s child poverty rate is higher than the U.S. rate of 18 percent. (A family of two adults and two children were considered poor if their income in 2008 fell below $21,834.)

• Slight increase in percentage of low-birthweight babies: The share of low-birthweight babies in Montana increased from 6.2 percent in 2000 to 7.2 percent in 2007. The state’s 2007 rate, however, is slightly lower than it was a year earlier —suggesting a possible reversal of the long-term trend.

• Montana performs better than the national average on four of the 10 indicators:

Montana fared better than the United States as a whole on four indicators: the percentage of low-birth weight babies, infant mortality rate, teen birth rate and percentage of children in single-parent families.