National Indicators of the Well-Being of Children

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The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics has released "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2010." This report continues a series of annual reports to the nation on the well-being of children in the United States. The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences, in cooperation with 21 other federal agencies, contributes indicators to the report and supports its production.

According to the report's section on education, eighth graders’ average mathematics scale scores increased between 2007 and 2009, as did eighth graders’ average reading scale scores. Not all the report's findings were positive, however; the proportion of youth aged 16-19 who were neither enrolled in school nor working increased from 8 percent to 9 percent between 2008 and 2009.

The 2010 Childstats website includes 68 tables and 59 figures that describe the population of children and depict their well-being in the areas of family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.