In our kids robert putnam offers a personal and authoritative look at this new american crisis beginning with the example of his high school class of 1959 in port clinton ohio the vast majority of those students went on to lives better than those of their parents but their children and grandchildren have faced diminishing prospects putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through . Its the american dream get a good education work hard buy a house and achieve prosperity and success this is the america we believe in a nation of opportunity constrained only by ability and effort but during the last twenty five years we have seen a disturbing opportunity gap emerge americans have always believed in equality of opportunity the idea that all kids . The american dream of opportunity and upward mobility is fading fast and it has happened during most of our lifetimes since 1970 most of us have heard the news about the trend toward increased disparity in wealth this book makes the point that there is a similar trend toward disparity in many social cultural and educational ways. Its the american dream get a good education work hard buy a house and achieve prosperity and success this is the america we believe in a nation of opportunity constrained only by ability and effort but during the last twenty five years we have seen a disturbing opportunity gap emerge. Society books our kids the american dream in crisis by robert d putnam review concerned scholarly the gap between haves and have nots was economic now its social too and a new apartheid