Is your school pursuing character education? In the last five years American schools have become increasingly reflective about their role as moral educators. The wave of school shootings grabbed the nation's attention not long ago, experts were urging teachers to move beyond their fondness for "value neutrality." They considered moral literacy and character education part of the educator's task. By the mid-ninties many charter schools were gaining parental support from their commitment to those goals. The first full-blown "character education programs" emerged.

While parents have always wanted schools to help children "do their best and be their best," they may find themselves wondering if programs that sound good really do provide character instruction. There are a wide variety of approaches, not all of which work. Some schools base their approach to character education on the notion of democratic "rights and responsibilities." Other approaches are mainly empathetic, seeking to form "caring communities" and "responsive classrooms." Still others are prescriptive, urging compliance with well articulated, often biblical, norms. Yet others identify consensus values and strive to promote respect, responsibility, honesty, trustworthiness, etc.

Whether or not your school has a "program," it will no doubt have an ethos and an approach. The fact is schools do character education whether they realize it or not. Every standard teachers set for academic performance, every response to classroom conflict, every incentive given for diligent effort, every cruel remark tolerated, every thoughless habit overlooked, every encouragement for overcoming adversity, teaches.

As you navigate through myriad possibilities at your child's school, keep the following thoughts about good character education in mind.

1. Quality character education is virtue-based. It promotes excellence.

2. Quality education inspires a love of the good, not just legalistic knowledge of the permitted and the forbidden.

3. Quality character education generates light not heat. When political hot potatoes are part of the program, ask questions.

4. Quality character education promotes and conduces to the school's main task, intellectual excellence.

What does does it mean for character education to be virtue-based? In our time the word "virtue" is often associated with chastity ("she lost her virtue.") The greek word for "virtue," though ("arete"), means "excellence" or "strength." Ancient philosophers asked "How should we live?" or "What sort of people should we become?" It was widely accepted that education should impart the "excellences" of courage, justice, self-mastery, and wisdom and that each of those virtues depend on the development of other traits (honesty, faithfulness, humility, to just name three). Our task, the ancients contended, is to promote in students both the will and skill to pursue those strengths. Those lofty ambitions can still serve us today.

Some schools, which see themselves as the child's fist civic community, have grounded their character education programs in the context of "rights and responsibilities." This "democratic" approach to character education ("What are my rights? What are my reponsibilities?") may provide a minimum standard, but as a framework for character education, it sets a low bar. Instead of encouraging children to go the extra mile, these programs unintentionally encourage students to think legalistically, and ask "What is required of me? What is not?" The child measuring his behavior by minimal civic standards is all too often focusing on "the most I can get away with" rather than "the best I can do."

A virtue-based approach sets high standards against which to evaluate ourselves. Good character education does not, in other words, simply post rules, highlight a "virute of the month" or trumpet the 10 Commandments. While good programs should provide students with a rich vocabulary of virtue (one moving well beyond "appropriate," "caring" and "nice"), mind and heart should function as one. The art of character education in the lower grades is helping children come to care about the good.

To achieve that goal, quality literature is important. Our stories and heroes shape the moral imagination. They move the heart and help children come to care. Does your school recognize this by reading the quality literature that will help children not just recognize and know the good, but love it?

The mandate of schools, above all else, is to educate individuals who think well, seek knowledge, and love the truth. Intellectual virtues, such as carefulness, accuracy, perseverance in the face of obstacles, courage in attempting novel solutions are largely derivative of the moral virtues. When your child takes care to write a paragraph or accurately carry out a science project, they are demonstrating virtues. Teaching and recognizing these virtues is what a good character education program is all about.

The best character education programs do not take valuable time "away from school." They make school better. They do not spend endless hours "discussing virtue." They inspire and live it. Quality character education reinforces the dispostions and habits that advance scholarship and help students aspire to excellence in all things. That's a pretty powerful prescription for the 21st century.