90 Girls Are Pregnant at ONE SCHOOL in Memphis!! WTF???

Ninety girls are either pregnant or have given birth this school year at Frayser Middle/High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

That's about 20 percent of the female student population of the school.

National Teen Pregnancy Rate At Record Low

Why is this happening, at a time when The Washington Post recently reported that the birth rate among U.S. girls aged 15 to 19 fell to 39.1 births per 1,000 teens in 2009. That's a 6 percent drop from 2008 and the lowest rate ever recorded in the nearly 70 years that the federal government has been collecting reliable data. In other words, it's a record low.

Need For Better Sex Education

From Black Voices:
Sixteen-year-old Terrika Sutton.... is one of the Frayser students who became pregnant. Sutton, who has a 2-month-old daughter, says she was in her fifth month when she found out she was expecting a child. The teen mom surprised her parents and classmates alike when she broke the news to them about her situation:

"They were like, 'Terrika, I never knew you would get pregnant,' and I was like well it happened."

The young mother goes on to say, though, that teen pregnancy is nothing to be proud of and that something should be done:

"It's a shame that all these girls at Frayser are pregnant, but it ain't nothing new. They probably planned on what they gonna do to get pregnant. Ain't no telling. They need a class where they can teach girls before they get pregnant to use protection and stuff and so they don't try to get pregnant."

Terrika may have isolated the most important factor here: sex education is crucial, and apparently these girls aren't getting it.

Poverty A Contributing Factor?

Another contributing factor: Frayser is a Title 1 school, meaning that the school receives federal dollars based on the number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. Almost the entire student body qualifies.

These young women may be poor, and lacking in self-esteem, and hoping that having a baby will make up for some of that. However, the sad truth is that teen parents often can't cope with the pressure and drop out of school. As a result, their children may be poorer and less educated, and may end up repeating the cycle.