Do kids really count in Georgia?

In a new national measure of child well-being by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, Georgia ranks 40th out of the 50 states. The annual standings draw on 10 key indicators, including poverty, infant mortality, death and dropout rates and family employment.

Georgia is sixth-worst in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes, eighth-worst in teen births, ninth-worst in infant mortality and 10th-worst in high school dropouts.

As executive director of Voices for Georgia's Children, Pat Willis wonders why Georgia always comes up so low on measures on child wellness.

"We need to hammer home that Georgia stays in the bottom of all these indicators for kids even while our economy is better than most state economies," she said. "We have a level of resources, comparatively speaking to other states, that should be available to pull us away from the pack of people on the bottom and we don't do it."