Teen pregnancy rates, nationwide, have dropped between 1990 and 2004, according to a report recently released by the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control). Abortions also dropped by 24 percent during this time period, perhaps indicating that comprehensive sex education has had the desired effect on teen sexual activity and behaviors.

Unfortunately, the optimistic 2004 stats were offset by a preliminary CDC report on 2006 births, which showed an increase in the number of teen pregnancies for the first-time in 14 years. And in one Massachusetts school, the news is even more depressing.

In the past year, the teen pregnancy rate at Gloucester High School has more than quadrupled, with 17 young women pregnant. What’s more, many of the girls view this as a good thing. It is part of a “pregnancy pact,” in which many girls, all under 16, pledged to get pregnant and raise their children together.

The breaking-news article published in Time reported that several students requested multiple pregnancy tests this spring and, according to the school principle, “Some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were.”

When school officials and the high school clinic’s medical director advocated dispensing oral contraceptives without parental consent, however, they faced opposition from many people in the predominantly-Catholic community.

The big question: How will birth control pills help stop pregnancy if teenage girls are actually trying to get pregnant? Maybe “comprehensive sex ed curriculum” should be expanded to include spending 24 hours a day, every day for a week or more, with a colicky infant.

On a serious note, if teen pregnancy is, in fact, on the rise, and the 2006 numbers were not just an odd peak in an otherwise downward trend, what’s the real solution?

For decades, ever since boys and girls were brought into separate rooms in fifth grade and shown grainy films with titles like, “My Body, My Self,” Sex Ed has been a hot topic of controversy. Many of us, to this day, aren’t quite certain what went on in the “other” room, and it was never discussed between boys and girls.

Today, it’s all too clear what’s being taught in publicly-funded sex ed classes for middle and high school students—and it’s all too clear that it’s not effective education, either. Since 1998, the U.S. government has provided 1.3 billion dollars in funding for abstinence-only sex education programs in public schools. And, as Jon Stewart so succinctly put it in his segment titled “The Global War in Your Pants: “Apparently, teenagers STILL want to do it!”

Older studies have shown that students who receive abstinence-only education are inclined to delay sexual activity longer than those who receive a well-rounded, or comprehensive, sex education, but that one-third of those students taught an “abstinence-only-until-marriage” curriculum are not using condoms when they do have intercourse. Teaching abstinence-only, when teens fail to listen, does nothing to prevent the spread of STDs and HIV. A group called Advocates for Youth calls abstinence-only education “ineffective, unethical and poor public health.” The group’s report spotlights just some of the misinformation being spread to teens in abstinence-only classes.

A recent study by the CDC shows that teenage boys who had comprehensive sex ed in school were 71 percent less likely than those with no sex education whatsoever to have intercourse before the age of 15, and were also more likely to use contraceptives the first time they had sex. Other reports show that comprehensive sex ed programs hold the most promise for lowering the rate of teen pregnancy and the spread of STDs.

Fortunately, these findings have opened the eyes of policymakers in Washington, and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held its first-ever hearing on abstinence-only-until-marriage sex ed programs last month. A number of witnesses, including researchers and other health professionals, touted the advantages of comprehensive sex education, and said that federal funding should go toward comprehensive sex ed, which has proven to be effective. Currently, federal funding is only available for abstinence-only curriculum.

If parents, or even parochial schools, wish to teach abstinence, that’s their prerogative and I support that wholeheartedly. But government funding – and public school sex ed – should focus on unbiased, medically-sound, and practical, sex education, including such topics as the use of condoms and other birth control methods.