Students' Character Counts As A Predictor Of Success

By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A new study from the Brookings Institution shows that character skills that improve performance can mean more to success than academic skills.

The study focuses on drive, defined as "the ability to apply oneself to a task and stick with it" and prudence, "the ability to defer gratification and look to the future" as measured via a composite score of behaviors on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Children whose scores showed greater character strength were found by the research to be more likely to graduate from high school with a grade point average of greater than 2.5, less likely to be arrested as an adolescent or to become pregnant as teenagers and more likely to graduate from college.

Read more in Education Week and find the report at Brookings.edu.