Character Education Key to Successful Schools

By Mose Durst

Recent reports about 24 percent of California high school students dropping out of high school prior to graduation are just the latest news of student failure. We already know about violence in schools and the low scores on math and verbal tests.

The consequences for our students and our society are ominous: Minimum-wage jobs, a lack of a skilled work force, financial pressure on families and billions of dollars lost to the economy as skilled jobs travel to countries with more highly-trained workers.

Discussion of solutions to our educational dilemmas usually follow a familiar pattern: Increase financial aid to failing schools, limit class size, offer merit pay to outstanding teachers and provide remedial classes to failing students.

Although some of these proposals are reasonable, they fail to focus on a central reason for poor student performance — a lack of character qualities upon which academic success is grounded, such as diligence, persistence, respect, responsibility and consistency.

In past generations, these qualities were learned mainly at home and were reinforced by the school and the ethical or religious community to which a family belonged.

If more of the burden of helping students to develop these qualities is now being placed on the shoulders of teachers and schools, then this burden must be borne. Character education in schools is the core principle that can support all academic learning.

Ideally, teachers work closely with parents, as schools collaborate with other institutions within a community to nourish the moral nature of each student. A student who develops positive character qualities such as those listed above can reap the benefits that the academic system offers. I believe that all schools must teach character excellence if we are to stop widespread student failure.

Mose Durst, Ph.D., is board chairman of The Principled Academy for preschool through eighth-grade students in San Leandro.

Originally published by Mose Durst, CONTRIBUTOR.

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