The Character Education Partnership has received a grant for website development from the John Templeton Foundation.
The $400,000 grant supports the development of a state-of-the-art online community for educators to share information, post problems, seek advice and propose solutions for many of the problems that plague the nation’s schools—bullying, disrespect, cheating, lack of a strong work ethic, and more.
The proposed online resource center will leverage technology to reach hundreds of thousands of teachers and bring successful classroom and school-wide practices to life. Through a new national, interactive portal, CEP’s website will show how principles of effective character education can be integrated throughout schools.
“Intentional character development can mitigate the problems facing today’s schools and help develop citizens of character,” said Joe Mazzola, President and CEO. “To assist teachers, CEP offers a proven strategy to make meaningful change. It is based on the core principles of effective character education. More teachers simply need to know about and use them.”
Schools play a vital role in shaping character, yet 65 percent of high school students admit to cheating and 30 percent admit to stealing; 50 percent of high school and 25 percent of middle school students say drugs are used at school; thousands of students stay home every day out of fear of getting bullied; 1million kids drop out each year. The list goes on. It reflects a breakdown of good character in schools.
“We need people of good character in our communities, nation and world,” Mazzola said. “With this new web resource offering 24/7 help for teachers, we expect to see fewer acts of violence in schools, less substance abuse, higher attendance rates, improved academics, and more respectful students.”
Tom Lickona, co-author with Matthew Davidson of Smart & Good High Schools, commented, “Character education is about helping kids do their best work and be their best self. That might sound like a no-brainer, but educators need practical, proven ways to support students in the pursuit of excellence and ethics—and the new CEP website can make an abundance of those strategies accessible to all.”
The project includes a major publicity component to ensure a far-reaching and enduring impact. “We will explain how character education can positively transform schools and why it is important for our communities, nation and world,” Mazzola said. “This project will lead to more educators who understand, embrace and use character education. In turn, it will lead to more schools of character that will graduate more young men and women who become ethical American citizens who appreciate the worth of character, the obligation of duty and the importance of kindness.”
About Character Education Partnership
The Character Education Partnership, based in Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to helping schools develop people of good character for a just and compassionate society. CEP is the nation’s leading advocate for quality character education initiatives. To learn more about CEP and the National and State Schools of Character, visit www.character.org.
About John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. We support research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. We encourage civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights. Our vision is derived from the late Sir John Templeton’s optimism about the possibility of acquiring “new spiritual information” and from his commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The Foundation’s motto, “How little we know, how eager to learn,” exemplifies our support for open-minded inquiry and our hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries. To learn more, visit www.templeton.org.
