New Mexico is once again near the bottom of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s rankings designed "to track the status of children in the United States."

New Mexico ranks 48th overall out of 50 states in the group’s annual Kids Count report. Last year, New Mexico ranked 47th.

"It’s always disappointing to see New Mexico so close to the bottom," said Lisa Adams-Shafer, Kids Count program manager for New Mexico Voices for Children, which co-releases the annual report. "But, as always, there are some bright spots. We continue to do very well in terms of infant mortality rates, and we continue to outpace the national average in improvement in high school dropout rates," she added. "Sadly, our child death rates have continued to worsen."

New Mexico ranks below the average in every number except infant mortality, where the rate of 6.1 deaths per 1,000 live-births ranks 16th.

In fact, New Mexico ranked in the bottom 10 in eight of the 10 categories the Annie E. Casey Foundation uses to create their rankings.

A troubling statistic was the increase in the number of deaths of children from age 1 to 14 years old. While the national trend showed a decrease in child mortality rates, New Mexico’s increased from 20 per 100,000 in 2000 to 31 per 100,000 in 2006, the numbers on which this year’s rankings are based. That is a 51 percent increase.

Numbers were also not very promising for teens. In teen births, New Mexico had 62 births per 1,000 teens age 15-19. The national average was 40 per 1,000 births. For New Mexico teens 18-19 the numbers were even worse: 97 per 1,000 older teens gave birth, compared to 70 per 1,000 nationwide. The number has leveled off around 100 per 1,000 births since 2001. In 1990, the first year of the rankings, New Mexico had 124 births out of 1,000 teens aged 18-19.

The number of high school dropouts dropped 16 percent from 2000 to 2006, with a drop from 16 percent to 10 percent. Despite the dramatic decrease, New Mexico still ranks 47th in the nation. North Dakota leads the nation in dropout rates with a miniscule 3 percent rate. The highest percentage is Louisiana, where 11 percent of the teens from ages 16-19 have dropped out of high school.

Only Louisiana and Mississippi ranked below New Mexico in the overall rankings.