February 22, 2018

Teenagers Are Pretty Awesome These Days

High school students are protesting guns, and that’s prompted some folks to dredge up a decade-old tweet from NRA flack Dana Loesch:

They can be annoying, all right, especially when they’re protesting guns. But all jokes aside, it’s worth being in awe of just how much better today’s teenagers are than those of Loesch’s era. Naturally, I’ve got a chart:

Bad behaviors have declined substantially since the mid-90s and good behaviors have increased. It’s pretty astonishing how widespread this is. They may annoy us with their smartphones and insistence on doing good works, but they’re in a helluva lot better shape than us Boomer/Gen X folks ever were.

SOURCES:

  • Cigarettes: National Survey on Drug Use and Health (1995 here, 2016 Table 2.2B here). 12-17 year-olds reporting cigarette use in past month: 4.2% vs. 20%.
  • Arrest rate: Dept. of Justice here. Raw arrest rates, 1995-2016: 2,553 per 100,000 vs. 8,228 per 100,000.
  • Teen pregnancy: Dept. of Health & Human Services here. 15-19 year-olds, 1995-2014: 24.2% vs. 56%.
  • Drunk driving: CDC National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1995 here, 2015 here: 7.8% vs. 15.4%.
  • School fights: NYRBS. Physical fight within past 12 months: 22.6% vs. 38.7%.
  • Alcohol use: Same as cigarettes.
  • Drug use: National Survey on Drug Use and Health (1995 here, 2016 Table 1.2B here). 12-17 year-olds reporting any illicit drug use in past month: 8.8% vs. 11%.
  • Carried a weapon: NYRBS. Carried a weapon at least once in past 30 days: 16.2% vs. 20.0%.
  • NAEP reading: Long-term NAEP assessment here, 17-year-olds, 2012 vs. 1994: 289 vs. 288. Note that two points were added to 2012 scores to compensate for assessment format changes.
  • NAEP math: NAEP. Scale scores: 308 vs. 306.
  • Attend college: National Center for Education Statistics here. Percent of recent high school completers enrolled in college: 69.8% vs. 61.9%.
  • School sports: NYRBS. Played on at least one sports team run by school or community group: 57.6% vs. 50.3%.
  • High school units: NCES here, 1987-2009. Average number of Carnegie units earned by public high school graduates: 27.15 vs. 23.00.

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“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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