(continued from previous page)

The following are examples of how some grantees have used the grants to strengthen the character of young people in their communities.

South Carolina: Character on State
Report Card

The South Carolina Department of Education received its first Partnerships in Character Education Program grant in 1997. “Without the first Partnerships in Character Education grant we received in 1997, there would not have been funds to get character education off the ground in South Carolina,” explained Camille Nairn, education associate for the Department.

“That initial grant allowed us to develop a statewide character education partnership team to oversee character education in our state. We began with 6-8 educators, but today the team consists of approximately 22 people, including educators, members of the business community, elected officials, high school students, and a representative from AmeriCorps’ City Year program.”

Each year, every public school and school district in South Carolina receives a report card providing parents and the public with information about student performance on state standardized tests, programs and services, student and teacher attendance, funding, and more.

Last year, the character education partnership team worked with the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee to identify five dimensions of character education that will appear on each school’s report card. These dimensions include: schoolwide character integration; planning; professional development; character-related assessment and evaluation; and building school-community partnerships.

Each school will conduct a self-assessment on how well they meet each of these five dimensions. Their points will be reviewed and averaged by an independent evaluator, who will then assign the school a grade for character education. The first report cards to include character education as an area of assessment will be released this November.

“Character education is about creating caring school environments where all children feel safe enough and comfortable enough to learn,” explained Ms. Nairn. “We all want students to achieve. Character education helps get them to the point where they can do just that.”

“Our goal is to help teachers understand that character education is not a subject to be taught, but a model to be integrated into all aspects of school life. We want to provide teachers with the resources they need to help students learn to be responsible, respectful, and dependable. These traits are important for every aspect of school life, and ultimately translate into school safety.”

Missouri: CHARACTERplus Offers Training, Resources

Character education began in 1988 as a collaborative effort between schools, parents, and corporations in seven Missouri school districts who came together as charter members of a project called the Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP). The next year, 14 school districts had embraced the goal to enhance the ethical and academic responsibility of youth.

In 1992, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded PREP a grant of over $800,000 to advance the vision of seeing character education become an integrated, essential part of learning. Based on the success of this pilot project, a Partnerships in Character Education grant was awarded in 1997 to enable the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to take the project statewide and the initiative was renamed CHARACTERplus.

The initiative brought teams of five people from each participating school together to attend regional training sessions to learn the CHARACTERplus process. Eighty schools, from 44 districts, sent teams consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and community members. With guidance from state facilitators, each school team developed a character education implementation plan. Ongoing technical assistance, evaluation support, and resources were offered over subsequent years.

Steve Suess, principal of Kennerly Elementary School in St. Louis, Missouri, leads one of the schools that embraced character education. “Character education isn’t a program for us, it’s a process,” he explained. “It’s the essence of all that we do. It informs not only what we do in the classroom, but how we behave in the cafeteria, on the playground, and on the bus.”

Mr. Suess believes that participation is an essential component of character education.

“One of the mistakes we made early on was that we developed great activities, but they were all planned by teachers. We didn’t seek the kids’ input. Then we realized how much more empowered the students would be if they planned activities themselves.”

To engage students, the school formed a character club and a character cabinet. Membership rotates each month until every student in the school has had the opportunity to participate. Students teach mini-lessons on character education to their peers and plan activities such as skits that they write and perform during assemblies.

“Through the years that we’ve developed this process, the benefits have been incredible,” he noted. “We’ve had very few in-school or out-of-school suspensions. In fact, years go by when I don’t suspend a single student. We’ve had no incidents of alcohol, tobacco, or drug abuse, and no weapons violations. None. Zero.”

Mr. Suess recommends that other schools infuse character education into all that they do. “When you begin a character education program, you have to be intentional and it might feel somewhat artificial. But now, for us, it’s just a natural part of who we are.”

New Mexico: True School/ Community Partnerships

The New Mexico Public Education Department was one of the first four grantees of the Partnerships in Character Education Program. The state worked in partnership with the schools and communities in Albuquerque and Chavez County to use the Character Counts! program as a vehicle for change. Character Counts! is a character education framework that teaches the “Six Pillars of Character:” trust-worthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

The program was so successful, the state applied for and received a second grant in 1999 to expand character education to 10 communities. Throughout the grant periods, the state provided resources, encouragement, and training to support schools and communities in their character development activities.

Program administrator Patricia Concannon stressed that these were true efforts between the schools and the local communities. “When we started out, one of the common things that we would see would be a sign at a local convenience store saying, ‘Only two students admitted at one time.’ In other words, we were saying to our youth, ‘We don’t trust you.’ After the school and the community both embraced character education, those signs came down. It was a real significant community change.”

Ms. Concannon also noted that real change comes from the top. “We often hear that kids don’t listen and that they don't learn. What we have found was that kids learn all too well. If they see adults acting without good character, then that’s what they follow. Children need to see adults in their community behaving with good character. Many of our teachers found that they had to learn how to work well together themselves before they asked the students to change. If you want kids to behave, how do you suppose that happens when they don’t see it from the adults in their lives? The only thing each of us can change is our own behavior and that sets a standard for others to follow.”