Posted at 06:57 a.m. Pacific; Thursday, January 20, 2000
Guest columnist
Character must join academics in schools

by Dave Quall
Special to The Times
School-safety issues have been in the headlines far too often in the past few years. As Democratic co-chair of the House Education Committee, I have struggled with how to address this heart-breaking problem. When the Democrats formed a task force to study education issues after the past session, safe schools were on the top of our agenda. While adding security guards is important, more needs to be done to address the root causes of violence in schools.
Teaching our children that honesty, integrity, perseverance and respect for others are core values that form the basis for growing into a complete human being has become a critical need for our schools. Too often, playground teasing escalates to bullying and harassment. We must break this cycle, which can lead to disruption of the learning environment – and violence.

I have spent 38 years in education as a high-school history teacher, a counselor and a coach. My wife is in her 34th year as an elementary-school teacher. One of my daughters is a counselor; my mother was a teacher. Public education has been at the center of our lives, but I have a personal philosophy of education that may be surprising.

When my wife and I were raising our daughters, it was always more important to us that they learn and demonstrate good character, as well as good grades. We felt that if they were able to develop the traits that made them good human beings, everything else would fall into place. We have not been disappointed.

And now, as I watch my daughters and their husbands raise our six grandchildren, I often think about them as I work to develop legislation that will affect the education of all of our children.

In Washington, four school districts have established a curriculum of character education (with financing from the federal Department of Education). These districts have shown a marked improvement in the learning environment in their schools.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend helped make hers the first state to adopt a statewide character-education program.

“Morality is not programmed into our genes, as our stratospheric crime, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy rates prove,” Townsend says. “Children must be taught to be good.”

Small changes in Maryland schools – such as starting each day with 15 minutes of discussion on a character topic (honesty, integrity) and a behavioral topic (telephone etiquette, restaurant manners); student essays on the topic; and using trained student mediators to arbitrate petty disputes – have produced big results.

A nationwide survey of 200 schools with character-education programs found 77 percent of the schools had fewer disciplinary problems; 68 percent had better attendance; and 64 percent had less vandalism.

This legislative session, one of my top goals will be to pass legislation encouraging and empowering local school districts to work with parents and teachers to implement a curriculum that will emphasize character development – a curriculum that can transcend our religious and cultural differences. I firmly believe that parents are the first and most important moral educators of their children. But our schools can, and should, act as partners with parents to reinforce and enhance the core values of our society.

In fact, state laws governing public schools already acknowledge the vital importance of locally developed strategies for learning character traits such as “honesty, integrity, and trust; respect for self and others . . . self-discipline and moderation; diligence and a positive work ethic; respect for law and authority. . . .”

The goal of the Basic Education Act itself is to “provide students with the opportunity to become responsible citizens. . . .”

“To these ends,” the law goes on to say, we have academic standards, tests, and accountability for improving student learning. The law already envisions character development as a primary reason we have schools.

While the Legislature and the state school system have concentrated in recent years on developing academic standards (known as “Essential Learning Requirements”) and new state tests for measuring academic progress, I believe it’s high time we also included a strong emphasis on the “Essential Character Qualities” required for human achievement.

As one of my heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., so eloquently stated, “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”