0.1 Character education: a critical analysis; robert tatman, stacey  (Page 11/16)

Los Angeles schools incorporating a character education curriculum utilized pre- and post-program evaluation strategies to determine program impact on relevant school behaviors such as attendance, fighting, and drug incidents. Data revealed declines in all different forms of discipline problems such as a decline in the percent of students sent to the office for both minor and major (fighting, weapons, and drugs) discipline offenses (Lickona, 1991b). In a San Marcos character program based on a pro-abstinence perspective, known high school pregnancies dropped from 147 to 20 from the 1984-1985 school year to the 1986-1987 school year (Lickona, 1991b). Benson, Roehlkepartain, and Sesma (2004) reported that when developmental assets accumulate in students’ lives, the assets are significantly related to lower levels, as well as delayed onset, of multiple forms of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use and other outcomes, “regardless of young people’s socioeconomic, family, or racial/ethnic background” (p. 3). Benson et al. (2004) also reported that, “the more assets youth experience, the less like they are to engage in ATOD use” (p. 3), and also noted that “developmental assets play a role in reducing all types of ATOD use” (p. 3-4). Benson et al. (2004) also listed a sundry of other benefits from developmental assets including that it is effective across diverse samples of young people, and that having more developmental assets does delay the onset of ATOD use.

Improved school-related behaviors

In an investigation on the effects of service-learning, one possible character education method, Scales, Blyth, Berkas, and Kielsmeier (2000) documented in the year-long middle school study that: service learning can positively affect students’ social responsibility and academic success” and that results during the course of the school year also showed that service-learning students “maintained their concern for others’ social welfare, whereas control students declined on those concerns. (p. 333)

In contrast to control groups, service-learning students significantly increased their belief in the efficacy of their helping behaviors, maintained the pursuit of better grades, sustained their perception that school provided personal development opportunities, and positively impacted their commitment to classwork. School-based service-learning had also demonstrated in part that participating high school students’ overall grade point averages increased, students’ political knowledge made gains, and attendance rates improved. The literature shows that when character education programs are initiated, school climate also improves (Murphy, 1998).

A positive relationship also exists between character education and academics, teacher attendance rates, and student behavior. In Allen Elementary School, an inner-city school in Dayton, Ohio, students were 28th of 33 in test scores among the city’s elementary schools. McIllhaney and Lickona (1996) cited an elementary school principal who in 1989 started a character education program that focused on the teaching of virtues, positively reinforcing virtuous behavior, and a parental involvement program whereby lessons and bedtime stories on virtues were discussed at home. Evaluation of this program found that, “After two years, there were measurable improvements in student behavior; teacher absenteeism also dropped. Seven years later, in 1995, Allen Elementary School was first among Dayton elementary schools in test scores” (McIllhaney&Lickona, 1996, p. 18).