“From a moral perspective, this is not OK, and there is also a real strong economic case for decreasing disparities like this,” he said. “We know there is a huge opportunity cost lost when not all of get to share in the opportunities that this state provides. We also know that we are an increasingly diverse nation, and if we can’t recruit and retain people of color in Wisconsin, we are going to fall behind.”

African-American children in Wisconsin rank below Mississippi, Michigan, Louisiana and Arkansas in the foundation’s data-based measurement of “the impact of a child’s race on his or her opportunity for success in adulthood.” Wisconsin’s 238 score compares to the national average of 345; among neighboring states, Minnesota scored 360 (No. 24), Iowa 322 (No. 30) and Illinois 305 (No. 37). Four states were not scored due to lack of data.

Taylor said a goal will be to “get this information out as broadly as possible ... because people can’t work on a problem that they don’t know exists.

“People will be shocked, and the next step is a dialogue across all socio-economic, racial, ethnic and professional lines,” he said.