(USA Today)--To a teenager, "When I was your age" usually signals that an adult is about to hold forth on just how different — and awful — the world is these days. But the latest version of an annual study, out today, suggests that since the mid-1970s a few key features of teens' lives have remained essentially the same.

Among the most vivid similarities: Today's teens read about as well (or as poorly) as their parents did a generation ago and aren't much more likely to have earned a high school diploma.

Also unchanged: suicide rates. Then, as now, they were about 4.5%.

The study*, by the Foundation for Child Development, a New York-based private philanthropy group, tracked well-being measures for two groups a generation apart, comparing three-year spreads of statistics from 1975 to 1977 with the same measures in 2003 to 2005.

It found that although a few things have changed substantially — family mobility is down, teen birth rates are down and rates of smoking, drinking and drug use are on the decline — teenagers today read no better than their parents did, though their math skills have improved slightly... LINK to Article

*The New America Foundation Workforce and Family Program convened an event to release a study, by the Foundation for Child Development, that reports on the Child Well-Being Index. To watch a video of the event, click here.