“Layered over in demonizing public policies and struggling within and against the social ravages of economic disadvantage, silenced needs, desires, hopes, and fears are provided possibilities for voice in a dedicated school context. The persistent pathologization of these youth as ‘at risk’ and ‘abnormal’ denies them the possibility of empowering themselves and attributing educational value to life experience. New Ventures Academy provides the space for students to envision themselves in opposite terms, ‘at promise,’ leading lives that they themselves have had a hand in shaping” (Proweller, 2000, 100).

Michelle Fine and her companions have once again knocked the wind out of me. Their poignant declarations, regarding the social construction of the “at risk” label, created to banish rather than support, and the hypocrisy of conservative policy on teen pregnancy, are impossible to ignore. Message: don’t abort, but definitely don’t ask us for money after birth either. Schellenbach et al reveal that 50 million dollars’ worth is dangling in front of states, ready to be doled out to those that still promote abstinence until marriage as the best policy (2004). Adolescent mothers fall systematically under a label of failure and moral disgrace when they are condemned by stigmatism: our society doesn’t even give them a chance to prove themselves. Amira Proweller’s article exposes the possible positive outcomes experienced by teen mothers who have the space to express themselves and work out issues, in a program like New Ventures Academy’s. These outcomes include, but are not limited to, feelings of strength and courage, outstanding resilience, self-renewal, and serious planning for education and careers, as teen mothers strive to champion their “at promise” potential.