ORIG./ The Bulletin employee in The Bulletin studio in Bend Wednesday morning 10-30-13. Andy Tullis/The Bulletin ORIG./ The Bulletin employee in The Bulletin studio in Bend Wednesday morning 10-30-13. Andy Tullis/The Bulletin

Oregon is not, unfortunately, a state in which all the children are above average. In fact, as measured by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Oregon’s children fall below average in far too many ways.

The foundation, based in Baltimore, is “devoted to developing a brighter future for millions of children at risk ….” In addition to awarding grants around the United States, its annual Kids Count Data Book tracks trends in such things as child poverty and education achievement. The 2015 book came out Tuesday.

Though there are a couple of bright — or at least mediocre — spots, Oregon’s children did not fare particularly well. In fact, in the four areas measured Oregon ranked below average in two and only slightly above average in the other two. Much of the information in the report is actually from 2013, the last year for which statistics are generally available.

In health measurements, Oregon came in 19th, the best ranking it received, though behind both Washington and California. Just over 6 percent of Oregon infants were low-birth weight babies in 2013, according to figures collected from the Centers for Disease Control and others. Six percent of teens abused alcohol or drugs, and another 6 percent were without health insurance, though that number has almost certainly gone down in the intervening year.

Yet 22 of every 100,000 children and teens in Oregon died in 2013. Here, Oregon was far from the worst state for childhood deaths — that “honor” fell to Oklahoma, with a rate of 37 deaths per 100,000. Nor were we the best. Four states on the east coast had child death rates of 17 per 100,000 or lower.

The state ranked 21st in the family and community category. It tracks everything from the number of children living in single-parent households to the number of those whose household head lacks a high school diploma.

The number of teen parents is also counted in this category, and like so many of the numbers throughout the report, it was a mixed bag. Teen births are down in Oregon and nationwide, a trend that began several years ago. That said, the United States continues to have the highest teen birth rate of all affluent countries.

Economically, the picture is far worse. Oregon’s kids rank 35th nationally in economic well-being and for good reason.

Some 22 percent of Oregon’s children live below the official poverty level, not the worst but far from the best figure reported and right on the national average. The picture improves somewhat, to 14 percent below the poverty level, when families are measured by what’s known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure, however, below the 18 percent national average.

Unlike the official standard, which is based solely on cash income, the SPM, a creation of the U.S. Census Bureau and other agencies, is a far more complex measure that accounts for such things as tax payments, work expenses and in-kind benefits a family receives.

And of all children in Oregon, just shy of 40 percent live in what is euphemistically called “high cost burden housing,” where rent or mortgage payments and associated costs eat up more than a third of a family’s income.

Finally, Oregon ranked 35th in a state-by-state comparison of education. Almost 80 percent of our fourth-graders eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches do not read proficiently, and about half the rest also are not proficient readers. By eighth grade, 63 percent of young Oregonians cannot read proficiently.

Add it all up, and Oregon comes in 29th of the 50 states and Puerto Rico when it comes to the well-being of our children.

That’s certainly nothing to brag about. Oregon is a beautiful state, but apparently we are either unwilling or unable to care for our children with the same zeal with which we care for our great outdoors. I have yet to have someone tell me why.

— Janet Stevens is deputy editor of The Bulletin. Contact 541-617-7821, jstevens@bendbulletin.com