Teenage Pregnancy In Public Schools

Teen pregnancy programs in public schools prove ineffective as shown by teens still dropping out, not able to provide for the baby, and getting stressed and even going through depression. The message these programs are supposedly portraying is to put sexual activity on hold until marriage. According to Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall, assistant professor at the University of Georgia and David W. Hall, associate professor: studies show that abstinence-only education rarely has a positive effect on teen sexual activity and, in fact, actually increases the teen pregnancy rate. The appropriate type of sex education that should be taught in U.S public schools continues to be a major topic of debate, which is motivated by the high teen pregnancy and birth

Early motherhood denies them opportunities. According to Sylvester Kathleen, the social costs for offspring of teen mothers also are apparent (Sylvester 2). Compared to those living in two-parent families, children in single-parent households are bad in health, education, and emotional and behavioral adjustments. Later on, if they continue to live with single parents, they become more likely to dropout of school, become heads of single-parent families themselves, and experience a lower socioeconomic status as adults. If the teen pregnancy programs were effective birth rates by teens should be lower. Poor people are most likely to become parents as teenagers than wealthy people, and they are most likely to have a baby out of wedlock. Being pregnant as a teen is really costly. There are fewer jobs now, and they pay less. A minimum wage job would not help a teen mother support a child, even if they work full time. In The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy, Kristin Luker contends if a woman has to pay for child-care, she earns less working than she would get on welfare (Luker 1). “Our analysis adds to the overwhelming evidence indicating that abstinence-only education does not reduce teen pregnancy rates. Advocates for continued abstinence-only education need to ask themselves: If teens don't learn about human reproduction, including safe sexual health practices to prevent unintended pregnancies and STDs, and how to

People may define ready as having enough money to support themselves and their baby but, that’s not what it's all about. Society realizes that the fundamental problem of early pregnancy is poverty, but people argue that society should make a bigger investment on teen pregnancy programs. According to Heather Corinna, the author of S.E.X; The All-You-Need-To-Know- Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get Through High School and College, she stated “obviously, too, a younger person has often had less life experience, and an older person may have greater perspective in certain areas which can be of great benefit when it comes to good parenting” (Corinna 2). “If teenagers and their babies represented only poverty in its traditional form if they were members of two-parent families or were worthy widows, as in earlier decades the public might be more willing to spend resources to bring them and their children into the mainstream” (Luker