Day 39: This is one in a series of posts assessing key developments during Gov. Rick Snyder's self-imposed 182 days to chart a new course for Michigan by July 1. For earlier posts go to mlive.com/stateofchange.

Gov. Rick Snyder's "Citizen's Guide Michigan's Financial Health" is being followed up this week by another guide which could be called a "Citizens Guide to Michigan Children's Health."

Released today, the annual “Kids Count in Michigan Data Book 2010” survey of child well-being in Michigan, is even bleaker than Snyder’s.

Both recount the economic travails of a state that has seen an alarming drop in income and corresponding increase in poverty. Snyder’s guide focuses on the resulting impact on the budget. The Kids Count survey focuses on the impact on children.

Taken together, they reinforce the point that unless Michigan gets smarter, faster its economy simply won’t be able to compete in the decades ahead let alone dig out from the rubble of the last decade.

The problem is that until the economy improves, there won’t be the funding available to invest in children, education primarily. But unless members of the next generation now being reared in poverty can beat current trends in school performance, Michigan won’t have the skilled workers required to compete economically.

Kids Count data show that in 2009, one in two children in Michigan were in households existing on 200 percent of the federal poverty level compared to one in three in 2000. One in five were in households right at the poverty level, $21,756 for a two-parent, two-child family. A decade go, it was one in eight.

Michigan fourth and eighth-graders have barely budged this decade on national education tests. In 2009, only about 30 percent in both grades were deemed proficient according to national standards.

A separate study by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan released last week reported that half the households in Michigan living below the poverty level were headed by women with no husband present. Nearly half of all births in Michigan are to single women living in poverty.

Family income matter more to a child’s educational success than other factors such as behavior, mental health or physical health. Poverty in early childhood has a bigger impact than poverty during adolescence. And “the association between income and achievement appear to have the biggest impacts at the lowest levels of income,” the CRC study said.

Snyder recognizes the challenges and in last month’s State of the State address said “it’s time to start talking about P-20 (prenatal through college and beyond) instead of just K-12. We cannot leave children behind without the tools for success in their adult lives, but we also need to encourage better and faster opportunities for children that can go farther and faster in our system.”

The state’s Great Start pre-school program, some $89 million in Fiscal Year 2011, reaches about half of the eligible population of four-year-olds with public school-based programming. Federal Head Start is confined to three-year-olds in extreme low poverty. CRC recommends boosting Great Start to capture more kids through greater outreach and greater accessibility, and then expanding the program to three-year-olds.

Universal pre-K education in Michigan would cost about $300 million, or less than 3 percent of what the state spends on K-12 school operations.

That’s not a lot of money when times are good, which they still are still not. That doesn’t make it any less necessary. As the CRC report concluded: “High quality pre-K programs targeted at disadvantaged three and four-year-olds, and high quality, all day kindergarten may be the best investment in the state’s human capital.”

Contact Peter Luke at (517) 487-8888 ext. 235 or e-mail him at pluke@boothmichigan.com.