Marvin Berkowitz, of the University of Missouri's Center for Character & Citizenship
I was recently asked how to convince people that character education actually works. The cynicism, skepticism, and conservativism out there often astounds me. Amy Johnston, the award-winning principal of 2008 National School of Character Francis Howell Middle School (St. Charles, MO), expresses the same frustration.
As the character education pioneer in her district, she often presents a comparison of her school’s academic and character data as compared with the other four middle schools in her district. Even early in her character education journey, she started to see her school pull away from the other four in both areas.
When other educators noticed the results she was getting, they began to ask for her secrets. She answered “character education.” To which they typically replied “No. Really. What did it?” So she would explain how she used character education to rethink and reform her school and would describe the specific initiatives she enacted, like looped, multi-aged “homerooms” and a collaboratively-generated set of four core values with a corresponding rubric crafted in part by students. And they would shake their heads and walk away seemingly disappointed. So she laments “they see the data, I tell them what we did, and they don’t believe it. What more can I do?”
Amy’s frustration mirrors the frustration of many educators who believe in character education and base their beliefs on hard data. I hear all too often that “there is no research on character education.” Well that is patently inaccurate.
In 2005, in collaboration with the Character Education Partnership and the support of the John Templeton Foundation, Mindy Bier and I published What Works in Character Education. It was a result of our attempt to find the holes in the literature; i.e., to generate an agenda for needed future research by mapping what little was known and then prescribing new research.
We were stunned by how much research existed. We found over 200 recent studies. We reviewed them, especially 69 scientifically rigorous studies showing the effectiveness of quite a wide range of character education initiatives, and drew conclusions from them about effective practice. While the newest studies in that report are now 8 years old, it still has legs and is cited frequently (yesterday I received a Google alert that it had just been cited in Malaysia).
And WWCE is not the only such source of evidence. The US Department of Education included character education in its What Works Clearinghouse and found many effective programs. In addition, other related areas have similar sets of convincing data. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning published both a program review of 80 social-emotional learning programs and more recent meta-analysis of 213 such programs.
In parallel there are reviews of service learning, positive psychology, and various prevention curricula, many of which are also included in the WWCE, WWC, and CASEL reviews. Separately or together, they point to the same conclusions:
- Character education can and does work
- The effects are broad ranging
- What you do and how well you do it matter
One of the most persistent push-backs we get is the assumption that time on character education (or social emotional learning etc.) is time away from academics. In other words, many educators seem to assume that this is a zero-sum game; more character education means less learning. This is about inaccurate as could be. I will make two points about this:
- Good character education is good education. The basic tenets of effective character education, as delineated in the CEP Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education, but also throughout the effective practices literature in education, focuses on school climate, relationships, and a purpose- and value-driven school. They are the same principles advocated in effective schools and in character education.In a recent study of nations that are particularly successful in academic education outcomes (and the US is not one of them), it was concluded that “Although all these countries are concerned about developing the unprecedented levels of cognitive and noncognitive skills required by the global economy, they are no less concerned about social cohesion, fairness, decency, tolerance, personal fulfillment, and transmission of values that they feel define them as a nation. In many cases, these discussions of national goals have laid the base for profound changes in the design of national education systems” (Tucker, 2011, p. 173).
Clearly the US has much to learn about education from this, for it is concluded that the research on these high success countries includes no evidence that any of them have gotten there “by implementing any of the major agenda items that dominate the education reform agenda in the United States, with the exception of the Common Core State Standards” (p, 209).
- Research shows that character education promotes academic achievement. This makes sense because of the overlap in methods with effective schools and because common sense tells us that when students like school, feel a valued member of the school community, and feel that they are co-owners and co-authors of their educational experiences, they are more motivated and self-managed, and hence perform better, both academically and behaviorally.In a study of 120 California elementary schools, Jack Benninga and I and our colleagues found a strong association between character education and state test scores. CASEL’s meta-analysis shows the same finding, as have many other studies and reviews. And case studies abound. One merely needs to look at the CEP website’s thumbnails of National Schools of Character to see example after example.
Perhaps no case is more compelling than that of Ridgewood Middle School (Arnold, MO), which Charles Haynes and I reported in USA Today on February 20, 2007. Simply by transforming the horribly negative school culture of a failing school by using character education principles, they moved from state test scores with only 30% success in communication arts and 7% success in mathematics in 2000 to 68% in communication arts and 71% in mathematics.
So can we make a case for the effectiveness of character education? I think I just did. And there is so much more evidence that I don’t have room to present here. Character education is good education as such it promotes healthy schools, the positive development of students, and academic excellence. And the data support it. If your doctor presented this kind of evidence of effectiveness of a treatment for you, you would not hesitate. Character education is what this doctor prescribes for our youth, our schools, our nation, and our world.
I have evaluated two state 4 year character education initiatives. The pre-data was collected using my survey of be behaviors associated with 28 character traits. The initiative was implemented and each year the data was compared with the pre-data. Year one and two data generally showed improvement. Year three and four data tended to show a decline. I did find a positive improvement in test scores for year one and two, but nothing in years 3-4.
Why is that? Most character education programs require some kind of curriculum and after several years of it, everyone is tired of the same old same “O.” These programs fail to involve parents and the community as well.
I have designed a character education program that requires no curriculum and is different every year. It also involves parents and the community. That program is described in Chapter Five of our book. Log on to my website to see it.
Clete,
Thanks for the comment. While I agree that “Most character education programs require some kind of curriculum,” it is notable that the two middle schools I highlighted only use such curricula as minor parts of what they do. Fundamentally these are schools that reformed their social environments to build positive relationships, empower all stakeholders, and seek and promote goodness. That is where the action is.
Ms. Johnston really expected to argue from anecdote? And why would the cynicism, skepticism, and conservativism out there often astounds Mr. Berkowitz? Because he has a vested interest in character education not being a sham due to how he makes his living? Far from an independent opinion.
In fact, “What Works in Character Education” the CETAC study he refers to reported purely subjective, negative or no results for actual improvement in character.
But that was 2005, October 2010, a federal study*, the largest and most thorough ever conducted, found that schoolwide Character Education programs, though well implemented, produce exactly ZERO improvements in student behavior or academic performance.
It’s no surprise, Just take a look at the lists of values and goals of the dozens of competing CE offerings. The lack of agreement between the lists is one of the most damning aspects of character education!
One thing all these programs do agree on is what values are NOT included on their lists of core values. Not found, even though they are fundamental to the history and success of our nation are such noted values as independence, inventiveness, curiosity, critical thinking, skepticism, and even moderation. “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” the famous saying by Ms. Frizzle on the much celebrated TV show, The Magic School Bus, embodies values that would be antithetical to those found in today’s character education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_education#Issues_and_controversies
*”Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children” The Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. October 2010.
I agree for the most part that character education programs are not very effective in changing student behavior. For the most part, they are a cognitive approach and not an affective approach. In interviewing teachers in every school district in WV in 2002 and asking them what they liked and did not like about their character education program, they responded to did not like that “parents undid everything they taught.” In short, their character ed program addressed character behavior about an hour a week. Parents on the other hand had many hours a week to undo that. If a character education program is to be effective, parents will have to be involved or student behavior will not change. What is being taught in school has to be reinforced at home.
Chapter Five in my book addresses how to involve parents. The 2nd edition of the book can be purchased on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for 26.95 (paperback version) Title is “Creating a culture for high performing schools: A comprehensive approach to school reform, dropout prevention, and bullying behavior.”
In my research with the character education four year grant with the WV schools, I did find a significant (p < .05) but weak correlation between the average score on 16 sets of character traits and student achievement. Some schools had better scores than others, either because of their character education program or the schools climate and culture. The correlation between the schools character ed scores and scores on climate and culture was +.47 (p < .01).
I hold the copyright for both surveys and they are available at no cost. Go to my website to view them. If you want a copy, send me an e-mail and I will attach them for you..
There are many books and theories around regarding character education, and we can certainly argue over the “data” just as we can argue about the proper values that we all believe that each program ought to support. Maybe a better way to think about character education should focus on helping students to find their own voices. How much better off will we be if young people care enough about themselves and where they live to become involved in the debate? The disagreement will go on forever, but the engagement in the discussion and the concern about the results is a big part of the true value of character education. Maybe that’s why character and citizenship can be so effectively combined. Participation in an effort to make society a better place can be part of developing better citizens who care about themselves and others. All of this requires deep reflective thinking about which we may disagree; but in that disagreement we can find value in ourselves and acceptance of the differences that others promote. People who care about their own lives may be able to develop the ability to care about others. If you care about yourself and others, you might also care enough to improve your own learning, which will probably be reflected on someone’s test. No parent or teacher can make you take responsibility for the work that you need to do in order to improve your academic results. It needs to come from each individual student’s desire to be better.
You mention caring about others as important, and I could not agree more. In my research I have found that 54% of students go to school believing that their teachers do not care about them. They also believe the other students do not care about them. In Chapter two of my book I describe the five needs of students: The need to live; the need to be happy; the need to have some control over what happens to them (the reason why some students join gangs); the need to have others care about them; and the need for some purpose in life.
The reform described in the book meets all five of these needs. I call it the “Citizenship School.”
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