You may remember that both Amber and Liam first alerted us to, and then wrote on, what’s now being called the Gloucester pregnancy pact—that a group of sophomore girls in Gloucester, MA decided to get pregnant and raise their babies en masse. Well, Time’s Editor-at-Large Nancy Gibbs thinks the Gloucester incident should be interpreted differently.

In a July 7 article appropriately titled “Give the Girls a Break,” Gibbs argues that the lesson is not that there are more teen pregnancies or that we should find the “anecdotal evidence” supporting the pact “certainly troubling.” (Wow Nancy, I award you the understatement of the year award.) Instead, she says, maybe this incident is an indication of changing teenage attitudes about abortion. I’m not going to go near the validity of this conclusion; what I’m interested in is the absolute insanity of her argument. Gibbs decides that teenage girls (and boys) have more respect for life because the Gloucester girls kept their babies. Wait a second... wasn’t the whole controversy over this slew of pregnancies about the fact the babies were planned? (And maybe the fact that one of the fathers was a 24-year-old homeless guy—as reported by Gibbs’s own magazine).

The best part is that she starts the article with the following observation: “You know you’ve found a perfect cultural touchstone when everyone brushes past it on the way to opposite conclusions.” Well done, Nancy.

The Gloucester, Massachusetts, principal who told Time that several students made a “pact” to get pregnant stands by his remarks. (Last week, Amber wrote a sharp Gadfly piece related to this subject.)

The often educational Sherman Dorn believes that this recounting betrays an ahistorical mindset because “the early 1970s [were] a time when everyone was complaining about the misbehavior and immorality of youth.” If the topic of discussion were the state of the nation overall, he would be right. Rates of teen pregnancy were far higher in the early 1970s than they are today (although, teen pregnancy rates kept rising throughout the 70s and 80s). But the caller in question referred only to Douglass High School, and his claim that Douglass was a far better school in the early 70s than it is today seems to be corroborated by the HBO documentary. At the very least, it wasn’t then the undisciplined free-for-all that it was in 2004-2005.

Talk radio is always interesting—it can be hard to get a word in edgewise! But the callers can sometimes bring clarity. Certainly that was the case today when one gentleman, a Douglass High School alumnus, called in to say that when he was enrolled, in the early 1970s, bad behavior and teen pregnancy were actively stigmatized. Now, he pointed out, bad behavior goes unpunished and schools open up daycare centers next to the cafeteria. It is not incorrect to note that misguided policies share some of the blame for this shift, nor is it incorrect to note that such accommodations have probably incentivized undesirable outcomes.

Re Amber’s fine post: The mayor of Gloucester, Massachusetts, announced that no evidence exists to support the claim that a group of young girls agreed to get pregnant and raise their babies together (although the girls’ principal, who first said such a “pact” was made, has not retracted his earlier statements). Some don’t buy it:

Gloucester resident Annette Dion, a 45-year-old private music teacher, said school and city officials should have done more to find out whether the girls truly made a pact to become pregnant. She said denying such a pact existed is “pretty naive.”

“I don’t think we heard the truth today,” Dion said, adding that pop culture has glamorized teen pregnancy and that movies and celebrity pregnancies do not give girls an accurate picture of parenthood.

“My personal feeling, my impression, is they probably talked and discussed and thought it would be cool to get pregnant together,” she said.

Brendan Henry, a 17-year-old going into his senior year at Gloucester, said the attention surrounding the alleged pact has taken the focus off bigger issues facing young people, including school underfunding. Still, he did not doubt that a pact could have existed.

“It definitely sounds like something that would happen at Gloucester High School,” he said. “It doesn’t sound too far fetched at all.”

Regardless of what really happened, perhaps this story will help knock down some of the myths about teen pregnancy and give schools, which are under ever-increasing pressure to become health clinics, some room to breathe. Or maybe it will do the opposite.

The story of the 18 pregnant girls who made a pact to become pregnant at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts, has been all over the news in the last several days. Everyone hearing the story has been understandably dismayed. My mother even called me to say, “Did you know they are providing in-school day care for those girls?” Sure enough, she’s right. Apparently, the day care center is located in a “converted classroom” at the school. We’re told that none of the pregnant teens plans to drop out and there’s now a waiting list for the free daycare program. Some are now questioning whether having daycare at the school might be encouraging students to have babies. Superintendent Chris Farmer responds, “I think that is hard to believe. Clearly if we can keep them in school, it gives them a better chance in the future.”

I would imagine that is true, and the limited research on the topic appears to supports this claim. (Of the few studies I found, however, none utilized rigorous methods and they were generally conducted on isolated programs.) The head of the organization running the daycare responded, “Once this happens they are happy we are there and the data supports this.” Yes, I imagine they are happy to receive free child care—who wouldn’t be? I will resist using this opportunity to pontificate about the message that I think having daycares in high school sends to students. But I am reminded of this recommendation in the bigger, bolder statement released recently by many in the education elite:

One particularly promising policy is to locate full-service health clinics in schools. Such clinics offer a way to overcome the absence of primary care physicians in low-income areas. They also address the fact that poor parents are often unable to take time from work for preventive and other health care services.

Hmmm... wonder if they also had in mind free daycare for poor teenagers who choose to become pregnant? Perverse incentives are tricky things, to be sure. And while it’s true that these clinics and the rise in teen pregnancies do not share a “causal relationship,” common sense tells us that it sure makes the after-prospects of having a child a lot easier when teenage mothers know there is someone waiting to take care of their newborn 5 days a week for free. So, then, the question remains: Is this a legitimate function of schooling? If you ask me, by all means, help disadvantaged children who come into the world have a better life—perhaps even through discounted day care at off-site facilities. Just don’t use the physical space of our schools to legitimize teenagers’ bad decisions.