A new report ranks Tennessee 42nd in economic well-being for children. Education advocates say financial stress disrupts learning for young students, and they want lawmakers to invest in early childcare programs to ease this burden.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released the 2026 Kids Count Data Book, which measures how kids across the nation are faring in regards to education, economic well-being, health, and family connection.
Tennessee was among the top three states with the steepest declines in economic well-being for children, with only Nebraska and Rhode Island experiencing worse financial falls. The report considered factors like the number of kids without insurance and those living in households burdened by housing costs.
However, the state scored better in regards to education metrics, like math and reading proficiency.
The latest data from the Tennessee Department of Education also show that students have made significant gains in proficiency rates on standardized tests, like the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) over the last two years. But a WPLN analysis revealed that those wins didn’t always extend to marginalized students. For example, Williamson County had the highest proficiency rates for all subjects in the state, but scores for low-income students in the county declined.
Dr. Zachary Barnes, an education professor at Austin Peay State University, told WPLN News that economic and educational success are often intertwined. He said stress is a major factor hindering young students’ success, and it can begin in infancy.
“When we start out by not having time for new mothers to stay at home with their children and have paid parental leave, we’re starting off at that point of not really supporting our young children, especially in Tennessee,” he said.
Parents that are worried about money, he says, typically have less time to engage in “back and forth” conversations with their young children, which improves comprehension and language ability.
“We’ve actually seen this in brain scans, that there are differences and thicknesses of different parts of the brain, based on if you are in a lower SES (socioeconomic status) household, or a wealthier household.”
His research focuses on the reading comprehension of children transitioning from kindergarten to first grade. Barnes chose this age range because kids who are behind in kindergarten are likely to stay behind throughout most of their schooling if they don’t get the proper support and intervention.
Barnes stresses, however, that low-income households don’t necessarily produce kids that struggle academically as these children often develop positive traits, like resilience, more often than their wealthier peers.
Still, he says, they face other obstacles, like not always having access to quality healthcare. This can prevent a child from being identified as having a language delay, for example – causing them to fall behind academically.
Low-income families also often struggle with affording pre-K programs. The median cost of infant-based childcare in Tennessee is $13,926 a year – more than the cost of in-state tuition at the University of Tennessee.
He encourages the state to invest in expanding access to public pre-K programs to ease this financial burden on families.
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