Comments about ‘Character education boosts academic achievement’

One form of character education which would actually help save money is for students to help clean the schools. When students have to help clean they are less likely to make messes or do grafitti. This also gives students experience with team work and leadership and responsibility. It's just as good or better than sports and less expensive too.

My suggestion? adopt this idea and stop sports where students have to be bused to other schools to do sports. use the money saved to improve education in schools.

I taught for many years and never knew any teacher who did not do all they could to teach and encourage good character in all their students.

Contrary to what some may believe, teachers really DO care.

Sorry, there is no sound evidence that character education works or is needed.

Why not mention of the only conclusive, scientific study ever done? October 2010, a federal study, the largest and most thorough ever conducted, found that school-wide Character Education programs produce exactly ZERO improvements in student behavior or academic performance.

The Casel results are a joke. It's a meta-study; no original research was done. At least the 2010 study had the intention to be scientific. But the Casel study cited in the article is comprised of no more than anecdotal, participant-biased storytelling.

It's no surprise that the government researchers found that each of 7 different programs studied failed. Just compare the values of competing character education products. The lack of agreement between the lists is damning! It also becomes obvious that the majority of the values are concerned with conformity, submitting to authority, not making a fuss…

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 our democracy are individualism, innovation, curiosity, critical thinking, skepticism... What about "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy?"

Ref: Wikipedia - Character Education

Another buzz word which means nothing.

Just free the teachers to do their job, and forget the fancy phrases.