Lives of promise

This important new book is based on the findings of the Illinois Valedictorian Project, the first systematic research study of high school valedictorians. Lives of Promise examines the question of what doing well in school actually means. The study follows the academic and nonacademic lives of 81 high school valedictorians for 14 years after graduation. The author, Karen D. Arnold, documents not only a generation of students who began their adult lives in America during the 1980s and 1990s, but also the viability of some of our fundamental assumptions about what our schools measure and reward. Written in accessible, jargon-free language, this book explores the obstacles that hinder our presumed future leaders.

Using illuminating examples, the author provides lessons about the nature of success, the consequences of academic achievement, and the conditions that foster attainment in early adulthood. The book addresses head-on the urgent national debates on the failure of American education to develop future leaders from our increasingly diverse pool of youth.