For more than a decade, educators and non-profits have successfully kept teen pregnancy rates down, but new figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control show that not only has the decline halted, it has risen for the first time in 14 years.

Between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate for girls 15 to 19 climbed 3 percent from 40.5 births per 1,000 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006. Prior to that, teen births had dropped 34 percent from a peak of 61.8 births per 1,000 in 1991.

It is a source of concern for many for obvious reasons. Not only is teen pregnancy the number one reason girls drop out of school, but also only 77 percent of the children born to teen parents will receive their diplomas, compared to 89 percent of children born to older parents.

Pat Paluzzi, president of the D.C. based-Healthy Teen Network (a non-profit that works to prevent teen pregnancy and provide parenting skills to those who have a child) said it’s not necessarily that teens are trying to get pregnant.

“But neither are they trying not to,” she says. “There’s a lot of ambivalence.” Part of it is an absence of goal setting and planning for the future, though looking ahead can be a difficult thing to ask kids who are in bad situations today, she says.

“If you don’t have a set of goals, and your neighborhoods are desolate, and your schools are horrible, if that’s your life, what goals are you going to have?” Paluzzi wonders.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor