Public opinion polling shows that two-thirds of adults (67%) believe most teen mothers come from homes below the federal poverty threshold. A full 70% of adults believe that most teen mothers come from single parent homes.

Not true.

According to new analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health conducted by our wonderful friends at Child Trends and released today by The National Campaign, only 28% of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families below the poverty level. Only 30% of those teen parents said they were living with a single parent (39% said they lived with both biological parents and 19% said they lived with one biological parent and one step-parent).

The teen birth rate increased 1% in 2007, according to a new report from our friends at the National Center for Health Statistics. Close watchers know that this is now the second year in a row that the teen birth rate has increased. The stark reality is this: After 14 years of uninterrupted good news, after the teen birth rate declined an amazing 34% between 1991 and 2005, the teen birth rate has now increased 5% between 2005 and 2007.

Today, we also released a new public opinion survey of adults and teens—With One Voice (lite) 2009. The survey provides some clues on what might help to reverse the recent increases in the teen birth rate. To wit:

• When it comes to teens' decisions about sex, parents are far more influential than they think.
• Adults and teens--by a long shot--view abstinence and contraception as complimentary, not contradictory, strategies.

So there!

If you are looking for additional info, please visit our web portal that has a press release, National Campaign analysis of the increase in both long and short form, a summary of key data, the complete results of the new National Campaign public opinion survey, and other helpful materials.

We really want to hear from you on two important questions:

• Why do you think the teen birth rate is increasing?
• What should be done to reverse the recent unpleasantness?

Now I hate to play favorites, but this is news that I absolutely have to share.

You might remember me raving about cheeseheads a couple of months ago.  Just to recap, people all over Milwaukee have made teen pregnancy prevention a priority, from the local newspaper to business leaders and dozens of non-profits.

The Teen Pregnancy Oversight Committee, with leadership from the United Way of Greater Milwaukee who is spearheading this effort, the Milwaukee City Health Department, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Urban Population Health, set a goal to reduce teen births in the city among 15- to 17-year-olds by 46 percent by 2015.

This week, Mayor Tom Barrett and Health Commissioner Bevan Baker reported the city's stunning first step toward this goal:  the teen birth rate in Milwaukee declined 10% between 2006 and 2007. That's from about 55 births per 1,000 teens to 50 per 1,000, the lowest rate since 1979.

My new favorite city has a long way to go to reach its 2015 goal, but for now this honorary cheesehead is basking in Milwaukee's success.

Read more about the decline and more about the United Way initiative.  Any thoughts about how Wisconsinites achieved this success?  Is your city seeing similar results?  Dying to tell us about your state or community's efforts?  Please share and discuss.

In December of last year, when data were released showing an increase in the teen birth rate for the first time since 1991, there was quiet a stir, and rightly so.  Between 2005 and 2006, the rate increased by 3%, from 40.5 to 41.9 births per 1,000 girls age 15 to 19.  This translated into roughly 20,000 more teen births in 2006 compared to 2005.  Everyone from parents to policy makers worried whether the progress we had been making in preventing teen pregnancy for the last 15 years had stalled, or, worse yet, slipped into reverse.  In another month or two, we expect to have data for another year of teen birth rates, and many fear the rate will have increased again. 

Is this a big deal?  You bet. 

If the rates go up again between 2006 and 2007, it will signal that we have turned a corner, and not for the better, and so the anticipation grows around the expected release of these new data and what they will signal.  But let me remind us of the obvious--another increase of, say, 3%, as alarming as that may be, would be dwarfed by how high the rate already is.  In 2006, this rate translated into roughly 435,000 births to teen girls age 15 to 19.  Whether 2007 shows another 20 or 30 thousand more teen births, or even 20 to 30 thousand fewer teen births than in 2006, we are looking at a staggering number of children being born to parents who are still children themselves. 

So, we needn't wait until the next round of data to assure ourselves that teen childbearing is still a crisis, and, if the teen birth rate happens to go down, we better not kid ourselves that the crisis is over.

The increase in the teen birth rate, Jamie Lynn Spears, the Gloucester un-pact, and---who knows, the performance of Michael Phelps in the Olympics---have all elicited a serious round of media finger-pointing.  You know the argument; the media is providing a heavy coat of coarse to teen culture and they are to blame for our increasingly sexualized culture.

Fair?  Of course not. 

Read what Sarah Brown thinks about all this in an op-ed that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and check out the accompanying editorial.

Authorities in Texas have removed 53 teen girls from a polygamist compound and they report that 31 of them are pregnant or have already had children.  That's 57% of the girls.  Creepy, dangerous, sad, shocking, awful - it seems like everyone has an opinion.  It also seems as if there are unlimited resources to deal with this problem.  Child Protective Services, the foster care system, law enforcement, the news media, the healthcare system, religious entities, groups like the ACLU - all these and more are concerned, engaged, watching, helping, hoping.

These girls and their children are important, and their fates and futures hang in the balance to be sure.  But what about the millions of other teenage girls in this country who are growing up in situations which lead them to teen pregnancy and childbearing?  There are communities all over the United States where more than half of girls get pregnant as teens.  Among Latina girls in this country, 53% get pregnant at least once as teens.  Among African American girls, 51%.  In fact, 30% of ALL teen girls in America get pregnant before age 20.  That means every state, every county, every community, every high school, and more and more junior high schools too.

Where is the outcry about these girls?  Where is the intervention?  Where is the government, the news media, the cultural intelligentsia?  Why are the little voices inside our heads that are asking so many questions about the FLDS girls - about their clothes, their lifestyles, their beliefs, their parents, their community - why are those voices so silent about the fates and futures of the girls elsewhere in this country?

One of those compound girls had a baby yesterday.  She delivered her son while child welfare officials, state troopers, reporters, and others waited outside the hospital maternity ward.  She is one of 750,000 teen girls who will have a baby this year.  Who is waiting for them?

Just in time for the DVD release of Juno tomorrow, CDC's National Center for Health Statistics has released new teen pregnancy data.  Good news---teen pregnancy declined 5% between 2002 and 2004. 

Of course, this news may leave some scratching their heads and wondering, "didn't the CDC just say that teen pregnancy rates were increasing?"  Close but not quite.  In December 2007, NCHS reported a 3% increase in the teen birth rate, not the pregnancy rate. 

Still confused?  Read on and be enlightened.

Read a statement from NC CEO Sarah Brown here.   Read a data cheat sheet here.  Read the NCHS report here.