School Achievement and Post-School Success: A Review

Abstract

general remedy for improving one's lot in life. As early as the 17th century, the English political economist, Sir William Petty, noted the link between education and income. Indeed, the assumption that education would raise the economic status of the poor was an important factor in the United States in stimulating the universal free-schooling movement of the late 19th century. This same assumption contributed to the enactment of compulsory education laws in the early 20th century. Education came to be looked on as a primary means for keeping American society open and for enabling men to break the social, economic, and political bonds of poverty. The famous American educator, Horace Mann, reflected this tenet when, with uncommon insight for that time, he issued the statement at the head of this page (Mann, 1968). Our purpose in this paper is to explore the link between education, individual opportunity, and individual Specifically, we wish to examine the proposition that: the post-school opportunity and performance of a pupil is related to his achievement in school, and the relationship is such that higher achievement is associated with success and lower achievement is associated with lack of success.