Character Education
Implementation Strategy
Prepared for U.S. President’s Transition Team
|
Character Education
Implementation Strategy |
December 23, 2000
IMPLEMENTATION OF
PRESIDENT BUSH’S CAMPAIGN
COMMITMENTS CONCERNING CHARACTER EDUCATION
White Paper to the President’s Transition
Team on Education
From Michael S. Josephson, Josephson Institute of Ethics
“Yes, we want our children to be smart and successful. But even more, we want them to be good and kind and decent. Yes, our children must learn how to make a living. But even more, they must learn how to live, and what to love. ‘Intelligence is not enough,’ said Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘ Intelligence plus character — that is the true goal of education.’ ” — George W. Bush
A comprehensive speech by George W. Bush entitled “The True Goal of Education” delivered in New Hampshire on November 2, 1999, and subsequent fact sheets and executive summaries set out five specific commitments:
Increase character education funding to at least $24 million per year
Incorporate character-building lessons into federal youth programs.
Establish the “American Youth Character Awards” to recognize individuals of exemplary character.
Expand the role of faith-based organizations and community organizations in after-school programs.
Increase federal funding for abstinence programs to a level at least as high as that provided for teen contraception programs.
1. Implement character education funding proposal
A) Select a Secretary of Education who understands and supports the President’s character education goals and is committed to implementing them.
B) Create a high level position for a full-time director of the character education program in the Department of Education responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of a comprehensive and integrated program including a structure for awarding grants that includes accountability standards and evaluation requirements.
1) Put into place a structure to assure that each of the following four areas of activity are given leadership and guidance from either full-time coordinators, advisory committees or outside volunteer consultants: a) Schools and classrooms, b) Sports and school-based co-curricular activities, c) Collaboration with community, youth and faith-based organizations, d) Administering grants and accountability standards.
2) Utilize the language of present authorizing legislation including its list of specific core elements of character to establish character development outcome goals and strong accountability provisions. Avoid dilution by grant seekers who use the label of character education to get money for pet projects.
3) Establish quality standards for effective character education and specific measurement tools to assess the effectiveness of funded programs (consider adopting or modifying standards published by the Character Education Partnership).
4) To assure that the President’s character education goals are vigorously promoted, responsibility for administration of the program must be in the hands of an experienced administrator who knows how to deal with the fact that many educators embedded in the administrative bureaucracy have a bias toward “values neutral” approaches such as values clarification and may be uncomfortable with abstinence programs and any involvement of faith-based organizations.
C) Modify current policies to assure that school districts, state interscholastic associations and other credible agencies are eligible to seek and receive funding directly (at present, grants are politicized, diluted, and slowed by requiring them to go through state departments of education). Administrators should familiarize themselves with the diverse but successful models now used in Texas, Arizona, and New Jersey.
D) Modify policies to encourage successful character education programs to make proposals to assist federal agencies to integrate character development into their programs dealing with youth and parents.
E) Consider whether all funding should go through the Department of Education or whether other agencies with youth programs (Justice, HHS, Labor, Defense) should be included.
2. Incorporate character-building lessons into federal youth programs
A) Assure that new cabinet appointees are familiarized with character education goals and the expectation that they will embrace the President’s commitment to incorporate character-building lessons in all federally administered or funded programs that deal with youth and parents.
1) Each agency should be required to promptly identify programs that fit the President’s criteria.
2) Each agency should develop program-specific strategies for the graceful integration of character-building objectives and accountability standards.
B) Assign a qualified professional at the White House or OMB with the task of coordinating agency efforts to meet their character education goals and maintain communication among agencies and with the Department of Education grant program.
C) Establish policy that all new federally funded programs establish appropriate character-building objectives and incorporate them into RFPs and program design.
3. Establish the “American Youth Character Awards” to honor acts of character
A) Establish administrative home for Awards program (probably in Department of Education; could be with Young American Medals program—for bravery and service--at Justice).
B) Include four categories of awards: young people of character, individual character-builders, effective character education programs, and character role models.
C) Establish nomination and selection standards.
D) Develop national media campaign with annual White House awards ceremony during National CHARACTER COUNTS! Week (already established by Congress and most states as the third week in October each year).
E) Employers, especially those that employ large numbers of young people, should be encouraged to support local and national nomination and awards programs.
4. Expand the role of faith-based organizations and community organizations in after-school programs
“I am not talking about schools promoting a particular set of religious beliefs. Strong values are shared by good people of different faiths, of varied backgrounds. I am talking about communicating the values we share, in all our diversity. Respect. Responsibility. Self-restraint. Family commitment. Civic duty. Fairness. Compassion. The moral landmarks that guide a successful life.... Schools must never impose religion — but they must not oppose religion either. And the federal government should not be an enemy of voluntary expressions of faith by students.” — George W. Bush
A) Establish an advisory body to suggest how to best accomplish these goals.
B) Host a White House Conference on Community Coalitions.
C) Provide encouragement and incentives in grant and other funding programs for character education if applicant names collaborative partners.
D) Assure that promotion of collaborations with faith-based organizations respects constitutional standards and the sensibilities of a large segment of the educational community as well as a public fearful that religious perspectives will be imposed.
5. Increase federal funding for abstinence programs to a level at least as high as that provided for teen contraception programs.
A) Draw upon successful state models, including the Texas program that is one of the “Right Choices” initiatives.
B) Connect abstinence message to an emphasis on positive core character attributes, especially respect and responsibility.
C) Be vigilant to assure that this dimension of the program is not politicized in a way that undermines the broader character education goals.
D) Assure specific attitudinal and outcome accountability.
6. Effective character education programs affect attitudes and conduct.
A) Make clear in all statements, RFPs and evaluations that the ultimate goal of the administration’s emphasis on character building is to promote attitudes and conduct that result in a safer, kinder, more respectful, more just, and more honest society.
B) Programs should emphasize positive advantages of good character and the development of character-building assets as well as the negative consequences of weak character and the reduction of character deficits.
C) Enhance focus on the behavioral, attitudinal norms and conduct by expanding national measurement surveys (such as those administered by the Josephson Institute of Ethics) and establishing national goals related to increasing volunteerism, service learning, voting, civic involvement, and decreasing youth violence, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drug and alcohol use, hate crimes and cheating.
7. Character education goals and programs should be linked to and where possible integrated into substantive educational reforms and traditional education strategies.
“Effective character education should not just be an hour a week on a school's virtue of the month. Effective character education is fostered in schools that have confidence in their own rules and values. Schools that set limits, enforce boundaries, teach high ideals, create habits of good conduct. Children take the values of the adult world seriously when adults take those values seriously.” — George W. Bush
A) Moral literacy should be considered as an inseparable and critical dimension of all educational reforms, not as a distinct or separate consideration.
1) The dual goals of education, according to Thomas Lickona, are to make children smart and good.
2) Theodore Roosevelt said, “To educate a person in the mind but not the morals is to educate a menace to society.”
D) Character education should be integrated into substantive classes and school environment including: reading and writing assignments, classroom and school rules, playgrounds, school buses, cafeterias, assemblies and sports programs.
E) Character education works best when it is pervasive, when core values are conscientiously and competently taught, enforced, advocated and modeled.
F) Education cannot take place if students are fearful because they are unsafe, if the atmosphere is disrespectful and if basic civility is not practiced.
8. While public education can and should play an important role in character building, the primary responsibility starts and remains at home with parents and other caregivers.
“The shape of our society, the fate of our country, depends on young men and women who know these things. And we must teach them. [And] this begins with parents. . . . The message of our society must be clear. When a man or woman has a child, being a father or mother becomes their most important job in life. Not all teachers are parents, but all parents are teachers. Family is the first school of manners and morals. And the compass of conscience is usually the gift of a caring parent. Yet parents should expect schools to be allies in the moral education of children. The lessons of the home must be reinforced by the standards of the school — standards of safety, discipline and decency.” — George W. Bush
A) The government must not attempt to take on the primary responsibility for moral education; its promotion of character education should, wherever possible, support and strengthen efforts of parents and others in the home.
B) Character education efforts should seek to stimulate collaboration with youth, faith-based and community organizations as well as parents.
C) Character education initiatives should seek involvement and support of the business community and private foundations. Governor Jane Hull in Arizona has established a creative and effective model.
D) Communications concerning character education goals should make clear that both parents and the educational community are wholeheartedly supportive.
· A study by the American Federation of Teachers reported that 95% of all Americans want public schools to teach honesty and the importance of telling the truth and to respect others regardless of their racial or ethnic background and that 93% want schools to teach kids to resolve problems without resorting to violence.
· A 1997 survey by the National Association of Secondary School Principals reported that 78% of high school educators believe it is the responsibility of public education to instill a set of common core values in youth in order to prepare them to be good citizens.
9. After-school and co-curricular activities, especially sports, should be regarded as a crucial part of a comprehensive character-building initiative.
“We will encourage and expand the role of charities in after-school programs. Everyone agrees there is a problem in these empty, unsupervised hours after school. But those hours should not only be filled with sports and play, they should include lessons in responsibility and character.” — George W. Bush
A) Quality sports goes beyond play and recreation; it determines whether young people use sportsmanship or gamesmanship in their approach to life.
B) There is a tremendous new emphasis on teaching sportsmanship and building good character throughout the amateur sports world. Sports should be treated as a special venue for this. The millions of youngsters involved in school-based sports programs can benefit if sport is treated as a special venue for the character education initiative.
1) Major national initiatives focusing on character building and sportsmanship in sports by the Citizens Through Sports Alliance and the CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports "Pursuing Victory With Honor" campaign have mobilized a strong corps of athletes, coaches, administrators and officials who could be called upon to assist in advancing the President's goals.
2) The national coaches associations of both football and basketball, many high school interscholastic associations, the NCAA Division 1A Athletic Directors Association and many major university sports programs including the University of Arizona, Auburn University, California State University at Long Beach, University of Kansas, University of North Carolina and Stanford University are already actively engaged in reforms to strengthen the character-building impact of sports programs based on the "Six Pillars of Character" framework of the national "Pursuing Victory With Honor" campaign.
3) CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports, Girls and Boys Town, Little League and other sports groups are developing special programs for parents of youth athletes to promote sportsmanship and character building in sports.
10. Though government can stimulate and assist character education, the ultimate effectiveness of character development efforts depends not on laws and mandates but on local efforts and sustaining support of local schools, parents and communities.
“[S]o many of our problems as a nation — from drugs, to deadly diseases, to crime — are not the result of chance, but of choice. They will only be solved by a transformation of the heart and will. This is why a hopeful and decent future is found in hopeful and decent children. That hope, of course, is not created by an Executive Order or an Act of Congress. I strongly believe our schools should reinforce good character. I know that our laws will always reflect a moral vision. But there are limits to law, set at the boundaries of the heart. It has been said: ‘Men can make good laws, but laws cannot make men good.’ ” — George W. Bush
Though the federal government should set the parameters of character education and define its scope by specifying core, shared values (such as the list enumerated in the current authorizing legislation — trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship), rather than mandate any particular strategy, it should stimulate, encourage and support a broad range of approaches and curricula.
11. The prevalence of a values clarification orientation and a tendency toward ethical relativism among many educational administrators must be regarded as a serious challenge.
President Bush’s position in this regard was made clear in the New Hampshire speech:
· Teaching is more than training, and learning is more than literacy. Our children must be educated in reading and writing — but also in right and wrong. The real problem comes, not when children challenge the rules, but when adults won't defend the rules. And for about three decades, many American schools surrendered this role. Values were "clarified," not taught. Students were given moral puzzles, not moral guidance. But morality is not a cafeteria of personal choices — with every choice equally right and equally arbitrary, like picking a flavor of ice cream. We do not shape our own morality. It is morality that shapes our lives. [Values clarification] is not moral neutrality. It is moral surrender. Our schools should not cultivate confusion. They must cultivate conscience.
· Something is lost when the moral message of schools is mixed and muddled. Many children catch a virus of apathy and cynicism. They lose the ability to make confident judgments — viewing all matters of right and wrong as a matter of opinion. Something becomes frozen within them — a capacity for indignation and empathy. You can see it in shrugged shoulders. You can hear it in the watchword of a generation: "Whatever."
· But something is changing in this country. Perhaps we have been sobered by tragedy. Perhaps the Baby Boom generation has won some wisdom from its failures and pain. But we are no longer laughing at honor. "Values clarification" seems like a passing superstition. . . . After decades of drift, we are beginning a journey of renewal. Above all, we are relearning a sense of idealism for our children. Parents and teachers are rediscovering a great calling and a heavy burden: to write on the slate of souls. We must tell our children — with conviction and confidence — that the authors of the Holocaust were evil men, and the authors of the Constitution were good ones. That the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not a personal opinion, but an eternal truth.
12. The President’s commitment to and eloquence on the subject of character education make him a role model and ideal spokesman; staff should continuously seek opportunities for him to emphasize the importance of good character and recognize successful programs.
