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Imagine your daughter and her seven friends came over and you knew that one of them would definitely be pregnant. If your daughter went to Robeson High School in Chicago, this would be the case: of 800 girls, 115 of them are pregnant or have had a child. The one in seven rate is astounding, and there are hundreds of factors that may contribute to the school's pregnancy numbers.
These factors include a lack of access to sexual health education and pregnancy prevention and a lack of access to reproductive health resources. The school's students are largely from poor communities of color where teenage pregnancies can be high. The Principal of Robeson adds that absentee fathers may also be a factor.
At least Robeson is a school in which young women are not being thrown out or transferred to other schools. Principal Morrow notes, "We're looking at how we can get them to the next phase, how can we still get them thinking about graduation?"
So often we may be quick to blame or judge the pregnant girls in the situation, their parents, or other individuals. But Robeson's numbers are a product of a much larger institutional problem - poor reproductive health education in low-income communities. Educational classes and centers need to be set up that normalize and encourage the use of birth control methods and distribute condoms. A teen health center is being built across the street, which is a step in the right direction. But funding needs to be poured into the creation and maintenance of centers such as these so that teenage pregnancy rates go down. The health of young women of color need to be addressed directly so that they aren't struggling to raise children or give birth while trying to graduate from high school.
Add a Comment128 Comments
WOW!! Looks like the spelling and grammar are correct!
January 25, 2010 - 10:13pmThis Comment
Whoops "yourself's" isn't correct.
January 25, 2010 - 8:18pmThis Comment
I find it funny that many people on these comments are correcting each other's spelling and grammer, but at the same time defending these girls for being ignorant about sexual education. Just though that was worth pointing out since many of you are making yourself's out to be complete hyprocrites.
January 25, 2010 - 7:36pmThis Comment
How is it hypocritical to want to have these women properly educated and want proper English? The blame for this situation can certainly be placed on many people from parents, to the school, to the kids themselves, but since we have a group of women that are uneducated about the topic and consequences, though some have enough common sense to educate themselves, these resources need to be available in a public, easily accessible setting. If anything, those that are correcting English and defending these women are saying there's a problem in the education system itself that allows such gross errors in English to be so pervasive coupled with lack of education in other arenas, such as sexual education.
January 27, 2010 - 10:04amThis Comment
It's hypocritical because you have no idea who's on the other side of the post. You have no idea if it's a college professor, or a twelve year old kid. You have no idea what kind of eduaction the people making these posts have, so how can you say it's not the girl's fault because they didn't know better, but expect people to be grammatically correct when you have no idea what education they have?
January 31, 2010 - 11:15amThis Comment
I never said it wasn't the girls' fault for getting pregnant. I just said that not all of the blame should solely be placed on them and if there is such a pervasive problem in this school, more education from parents and the school needs to be addressed as well as the attitudes of the teens toward pregnancy. This is not a black and white issue, and just because I can sympathize with their plight, doesn't mean I empathize and find these girls blameless. And I still think, whether they be 12 or a college professor, people should be held to a standard of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you own or have access to a computer and a dictionary (which you do because of the internet), there is no excuse for such poor expression of language. I agree that I don't know who's on the other end of the post or their education levels, but I do feel that you can coherently post a properly structured sentence by the time you are 10ish. Besides, there's spell-check in the comment reply and if nobody corrects others how are they going to learn to be more conscientious about this issue?
February 1, 2010 - 10:17amThis Comment
Robeson high school is 99.8 percent black and .2 percent Hispanic (source: www.localschooldirectory.com).
Given that fact, the only thing "astounding" about the pregnancy rate at this school is how low it is.
January 13, 2010 - 12:45pmThis Comment
I think not only do teen health and sexual education needs must be addressed, but some practical support for those pregnant teenagers is desparately needed. The principal sounds like a good man - he wants teenagers not to end their education just because they are pregnant, but give them the chance to keep moving on with their lives. Good luck to those young women, I hope they get high school diplomas at least and keep themselves going while embarking on that life long journey that is parenthood.
January 7, 2010 - 4:54amThis Comment
wanting love doesnt make having a kid at sixteen ok who says these kids can pay for the baby who knows how many are getting put up for adoption if u want someone to love you get a puppy
December 27, 2009 - 10:59pmThis Comment
Perhaps there are an inordinate number of whores in that particular school...
December 26, 2009 - 7:07pmThis Comment