Statewide Study Finds Ventura County Children Fare Well : Report: An advocacy group indicates health, education and financial support are better than average. But in one category--child abuse--statistics tell a different story and also show an increase.

Ventura County treats its children better than most other counties in California, but it should be doing more, says a study released last week by a statewide children’s advocacy group.

Children Now’s 1994 report on California’s children shows that children in Ventura County get better education, health care and financial support than the average California child.

“Ventura County does do better than the state average in many critical respects,” said Lois Salisbury, executive director of the Oakland-based Children Now. “But when you look at the numbers, there’s no county that can afford to be complacent.

“No one can be satisfied when we have nearly 20% of (Ventura County) fourth-graders who can’t understand a basic reading assignment,” Salisbury said, referring to CLAS test scores. “I don’t think anyone’s going to be happy with the dropout rate of 11% or 12%. Every one of the figures . . . has room for improvement.”

Yet child abuse was the only issue studied by Children Now in which Ventura County children fared worse than the state average.

Ventura County children are being abused in numbers that are rising alarmingly, Children Now’s annual studies show.

In 1992, abuse or neglect reports were filed on 77 out of every 1,000 Ventura County children, the study says. The 1992 California average was 76.6 reports per 1,000.

The Ventura County rate increased from 64.2 per 1,000 in 1991 and 51.6 per 1,000 in 1990, according to previous Children Now studies. Child abuse reports are probably increasing in Ventura County as they are statewide because people are more aware of the problem and willing to accuse the abusers, a county official said.

“We have a lot more information available about child abuse and neglect, and a lot more education in the community,” said Sally Allen, who oversees emergency response and adoptions for Ventura County Child Protective Services.

Economic pressures such as layoffs and pay cuts may also be pushing some already stressed parents to the point where they hurt their children, Allen said.

Parents’ money woes may also be denying Ventura County children access to medical care, good food and higher education, Allen pointed out.

“This is an expensive county to live in, so if you don’t have a job or you don’t have a well-paying job, it’s a little more difficult to make ends meet,” Allen said. “Sometimes that means the family may not have money to pay for child care.”

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In 1992, the 192,595 children younger than 18 in Ventura County fared better than those in many other California counties, according to Children Now’s annual review of state, county and local statistics.

As reflected in the number, traditional families appear stronger in Ventura County than in many other counties.

Only 10% of Ventura County’s infants were born to teen-age mothers, compared to a rate of 12.1% in neighboring Los Angeles County, 11.5% in Santa Barbara County and a statewide average of 11.7%.

Compared to other counties, Ventura County recorded the third-lowest number of children born out of wedlock--20.5%--and the 15th-lowest number of babies born to women with late or no prenatal care--4.7%, the study says.

Only 5.2% of all Ventura County infants weighed less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces at birth, while 5.8% of all babies in California were born abnormally small.

And Ventura County infants died at birth at a rate of 6.8 per 1,000, compared with a statewide mortality rate of 7.5 per 1,000 and rates of 6.4 in Santa Barbara County and 7.7 in Los Angeles County.

Good doctors and early child care should be praised for Ventura County’s better-than-average health rankings in the Children Now study, said Dr. Gary Feldman, county medical director.

“The key issue is our infant mortality,” Feldman said last week. “I think that that says a lot about the fact that we have, I think, very good pediatrics, with excellent nursery care.”

The ratings “probably reflect more than anything the overall wealth and education of people in the county,” he said. “The fact that people are paying attention to children’s health is extremely helpful.”

Ventura County earned its highest ranking from Children Now for its immunization rate.

The county ranked second in the state for immunizing 61% of its children by age 2, following San Mateo County’s top-ranked 67% immunization rate, the study says. Only 40% were immunized in Los Angeles County, and 56% received a full battery of vaccinations in Santa Barbara County.

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Feldman said he hopes to expand Ventura County’s aggressive vaccination program to include a computerized system for tracking childhood immunization records across the county.

He added: “I’m putting a lot of effort into seeing that the figures go nowhere but up.”

In education, Ventura County children also fared somewhat better than children in many other counties.

In 1993, fewer fourth-graders scored poorly on CLAS tests than in many other California counties. Only 18% of them scored a substandard 1 or 2 out of a possible 6 on the reading-based test, while 29% of fourth-graders in Los Angeles County scored low and 19% scored low in Santa Barbara County. The statewide average was 24% for substandard work.

Eighth-graders scored higher.

Some 15% of Ventura County eighth-graders scored a low 1 or 2 on writing-based CLAS tests in 1993. In contrast, 26% of eighth-graders scored low in Los Angeles County and 17% did poorly in Santa Barbara County. Statewide, 20% of eighth-graders scored poorly.

Joseph Liu, director of policy for Children Now, said that he was troubled that nearly one in five students in the fourth grade could not handle a reading assignment and about one in seven eighth-graders cannot write a simple essay.

“It is, in fact, better than most other counties in the state,” Liu said. “But I find that troubling. And most parents would say, ‘My goodness, what’s going on in our schools? What can we do better?’ ”

Yet at least one Ventura County educator saw the improvement between fourth- and eighth-grade CLAS scores as a positive sign that the 18.2% of children here with limited English skills are learning something in the county’s schools.

“What that may suggest is that the students with limited proficiency in English are transitioning into their second language,” said Chuck Weis, Ventura County superintendent of schools. “If I gave you a test in English when that was your second language, how well would you do?”

But Weis echoed Liu’s dismay that about one-sixth of fourth- and eighth-graders in Ventura County cannot handle a basic literacy test.

“Our goal is not to have 15% of our kids performing at that low level,” Weis said. “We will look for ways for kids to become better at their writing . . .. Every child should score 3, 4, 5 or 6.”

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Once in high school, 11.7% of Ventura County’s class of 1993 dropped out, leaving the county ranked 26th among 57 studied by Children Now. In 55th-ranked Los Angeles County, 20.4% dropped out, while 9.6% dropped out in 17th-ranked Santa Barbara County. The state dropout rate was 15.3%.

And 36.7% of Ventura County’s high school graduates were prepared for college, compared with a statewide average of only 32.7%.

“That’s great,” Weis said. But he said he has seen statistics showing that Ventura County grads go to four-year colleges at a lower-than-average rate, largely because the county lacks such a college.

“It costs so much more to go off to UCLA or Cal Poly or (Cal State) Northridge,” he said. “That’s why we’re pushing so hard to get a four-year university here.”

Then there are children who do not fare well, as reflected in Children Now’s study of arrests and violence.

With five children under age 18 killed by guns in 1992, Ventura County ranked only 41st in the state compared to myriad tiny rural counties such as Mariposa and Mono where none was killed with a gun.

Yet the Ventura County rate was far lower than in second-worst San Bernardino, where bullets killed 55 children, and the worst--Los Angeles County, where 432 children died in gunfire.

Ventura County performed far better on felony arrests, ranking 15th with a rate of 1,907 arrests per 100,000 children aged 10 to 17, and performing better than many smaller, rural counties.

Santa Barbara County was ranked 33rd with a rate of 2,813 felony arrests per 100,000, while Los Angeles County was ranked 38th, with a rate of 3,228 arrests per 100,000. The statewide average was 2,820 felony arrests per 100,000.

Arrest statistics can often reflect a family’s failure to heed some of the other issues tracked by Children Now, said Ventura County Juvenile Court Judge Steven Z. Perren.

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Children with neglectful or abusive parents, poor school performance and drug habits are far more likely to break the law repeatedly as minors, Perren said.

“Those are real storm warnings that I’ve got someone who’s going to be a long-term ward in court,” Perren said last week.

Far too often, juvenile offenders are dropped off to face the judge alone, and without that support of parents, they may take court less seriously, Perren said.

And their numbers are growing, he said.

“This is an alligators and swamps problem,” he said. “It’s up to eye level here.”

The most important factors in keeping a child straight are solid support from parents and educational goals, Perren said.

“When I see that reading deficit (on a child’s report) I get real scared,” he said. “The kid is not occupying his time. He is embarrassed as often as unwilling to go to school, and it is true the devil will make work for those idle hands.”

California pays in other ways for not caring for its children, said Salisbury, Children Now’s director.

Children who grow into healthy, well-educated jobholders will support the Social Security system and the tax base; those who do not become a burden on tax-funded social services, she said.

“If we don’t take care of kids, everything that you care about is going to crumble,” Salisbury said. “Even if you think there’s no humane reason to care about a child, there’s every practical, self-interested reason to care about children because children are little people.”

Ventura County residents can help by voting for children’s funding, such as education and health care, and they must get involved personally, she said.

“That includes picking up the phone and getting in on a talk show discussing kids’ issues, or calling a candidate’s campaign headquarters and saying, ‘Here are some questions on kids’ issues, where does the candidate stand?’ ” Salisbury urged. “We’ve got to raise the noise level, which is practically silent in this electoral campaign, for kids.”

Ventura County’s Children

A new study has found that children in Ventura County fared better than many of their peers in other parts of California on issues of health, welfare and education. Here is a look at some important indicators:

EDUCATION

Ventura Calif. County County avg. rank* Low eighth-grade CLAS test writing scores 15.0% 20.0% 11 of 58 Low fourth-grade CLAS test reading scores 18.0% 24.0% 13 of 58 High school dropouts 11.7% 15.3% 26 of 57 High school graduates prepared for college 36.7% 32.7% 11 of 5

HEALTH

Ventura Calif. County County avg. rank* Child abuse reports (per 1,000 children) 77.0 76.6% 21 of 58 Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births) 6.8% 7.5% 14 of 34 Low birth weight (less than 5 pounds, 8 ozs.) 5.2% 5.8% 27 of 54 Children who can’t afford lunch at school 23.3% 32.1% 19 of 58 Percent of 2-year-olds fully immunized 61.0% 48.5% 2 of 29

TEEN YEARS

Ventura Calif. County County avg. rank* Percent of births to women younger than 20 10.0% 11.7% 9 of 56 Juvenile felony arrests per 100,000 children 1,907 2,820 15 of 50

FAMILY LIFE

Ventura Calif. County County avg. rank* Child support orders receiving any payment 44.0% 40.1% 25 of 57 Children born to unmarried parents 20.5% 33.0% 3 of 56 Newborns whose parents can’t afford hlth. care 31.6% 39.4% 12 of 56

* Compares Ventura County with other counties in state; 1=Best, 58=Worst. NOTE: In some categories, data for all counties was not available.

Source: Children Now 1994 report, 1992 and 1993 statistics