Laurel's Dirty Secret

Laurel Sweet's Herald article attempts to draw equivalence between snobby (oh no!) Beverly's teen pregnancy rate and Gloucester's, but as one commenter points out, all she really proves is that girls can't do math:

Beverly-- 93 teen births out of about 39,000; that's a rate of about .0023 Gloucester- 118 teen births out of a population around 30,000; a rate of about .0039, more than one and-a-half times that of Gloucester Tell me again why Beverly should be construed to be as much of a breeding factory as Gloucester High, please.

And in case you're wondering, I did a quick check of the Census website and saw that the proportion of people under 18 was roughly equal across the two towns. Not to mention that the median incomes (circa 2000) of the towns were not that far apart: 47k in Glostah, versus 53k in Beverly. Not chump change, but $6000 doesn't go as far at the polo club as it used to, either.