A new report concludes that, judging by most indicators of well-being, life has improved over the past 10 years for the nation's children--except when it comes to their education and health. According to the Foundation for Child Development's "2006 Child Well-Being Index" released last week, children's educational achievement levels largely "flat-lined" since 1975, while measures of their overall health have fallen since the mid-1980s. The foundation, a New York City-based philanthropy that works to improve social conditions for children, has contracted with researchers from Duke University over the past five years to compile an annual index giving a single measure for gauging children's quality of life. To put it together, scholars compiled statistics dating from 1975 for 28 indicators in seven domains: (1) education; (2) health; (3) safety and behavior; (4) community connectedness; (5) social relationships; (6) emotional and spiritual well-being; and (7) family economic conditions. To measure safety and behavior, for instance, the researchers studied data on violent victimization, drug and alcohol use, and births to teenage mothers. Previous reports by the group highlighted the decline in children's health, a trend that the researchers largely attributed to growing childhood obesity. The researchers focused this report, the group's third, on education which they measured mostly through reading and mathematics scores on the congressionally mandated National Assessment of Educational Progress.