I am delighted to announce that according to the New York Times, schools for pregnant girls are dying off. In an article from yesterday’s paper, the NYT outlines closings of these schools all across the country, and focuses particularly sharply on the low-quality, high-cost pregnant girls’ schools in New York. These schools will close at the end of this school year. This doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, since they serve only a very small portion of the 7,000 girls who become pregnant each year in the New York schools. These schools have mostly been places to shuttle low-achieving pregnant girls out of the school system to not have to offer them special services and to keep them from dragging down test scores. The article ended with this quote from the superintendent: “The most powerful thing we can do for parenting teens is help them get their diplomas,” she said. “Your brain does not die when you become pregnant.” Hooray for mothers, especially teen mothers, with brains!
