Not Only #1 In Economic Well-Being Of Children, North Dakota Claims The #1 Spot Four Years In A Row

I wonder if The New York "ban fracking" Times will report this story? The Dickinson Press is reporting:

North Dakota is the best state in the country for the economic well-being of children, according to the annual Kids Count survey.

Buoyed by the lowest rate of teenagers out of school and not working, and the second-lowest child poverty rates in the U.S., the Annie E. Casey Foundation named North Dakota tops for the fourth-straight year. The state ranks seventh overall, down one spot from 2014.

In the other categories ranked in the study, North Dakota was sixth for family and community, 18th for education and 29th in health.

North Dakota was preceded in the rankings by Minnesota (No. 1), while neighbors South Dakota (18th) and Montana (30th) lagged behind.

[The story is a bit confusing to me, but North Dakota is #7 (Minnesota is #1) in overall child well-being, but in economic well being for children North Dakota was #1. At this link: http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-2015kidscountdatabook-2015.pdf#page=5, scroll up and down to see the rankings in the overall category and the subcategories.]

I particularly liked the part about "lowest rate of teenagers out of school." Remember this article from Bloomberg?

That burst of employment generated by fracking in the past decade may not have been all good news for the U.S.

Jobs offering low-skilled American teenagers a chance to earn big bucks in the shale oil and gas industry also made it less attractive to finish high school, causing a jump in dropout rates, a new study showed. It was published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The sobering takeaway: fracking raises the risk that some workers at the bottom of the skills and education ladder may end up being stuck there, because they made bad schooling choices in a rush to be part of the industry, according to Elizabeth Cascio and Ayushi Narayan, the study's authors.

Even my wife who is no supporter of fracking (don't even ask), laughed out loud when she heard someone say that fracking has contributed to the high school dropout rate. 

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Speaking Of Children ... Or More Accurately, Children-To-Be

It's interesting that the Pope has not spoken out about whether it's appropriate to pay for a Lamborghini with baby parts.