ST. LOUIS -- Missouri ranks 33rd nationally in a state-by-state report on the well-being of America's children.

This year's Kids Count Data Book, released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, shows Missouri improved on four of 10 indicators of child well-being since 2000.

Improvements were seen in child and teen death rates, teen birth rate and the percentage of teens who are high school dropouts. Still, it says Missouri's teen death rate is among the worst in the country.

Missouri did worse on three other indicators -- the percentage of low birthweight babies, the infant mortality rate and the percent of children in poverty.

The state remained essentially unchanged in percent of teens not attending school or working, percent of children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment, and percent of children in single-parent families.

In composite rankings for all 10 indicators, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Utah ranked highest, while Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama ranked lowest. States with the biggest improvement between 1999 and 2007 were New York, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina and Illinois; states with the biggest drop in that span were Montana, Maine, Alaska, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Vermont.

The report recommends amending the No Child Left Behind Act to produce a more precise picture of students' progress and standardize the states' methods of calculating high school graduation rates.