Excel by Eight Resource Grid:
Improving Children’s Development Outcomes
Today in Arkansas, 12% of births are pre-term. Black babies are the most likely to be born premature at 16.6%, followed by whites at 10.4% and Hispanics at 10.2%.
Just 10% of infants and toddlers have access to high-quality child care, and less than half of three and four year olds are enrolled in pre-K.
38% of third-graders met the reading readiness benchmark—up from 35% in the 2015-2016 school year.
Yet only 22% of Black and 28% of Hispanic students met the benchmark compared to 43% of white students.
With the resource grid, we can improve all children’s outcomes.
When communities are fully plugged in, development outcomes improve. An unreliable or patchy flow of resources can result in a range of issues, with long-lasting consequences to children’s health.
When communities are fully plugged into this grid of resources, children’s development outcomes improve. An unreliable or patchy flow of resources to the grid can result in a range of child development problems that can have long-lasting consequences for children’s health and well-being. Creating a reliable grid, one in which all families and communities are plugged in, will help to ensure that all children have what they need to thrive.
