Rockland, Maine—“We know what schools of integrity look like. We know how to build them. It's time for school leaders to get out in front of the crowd and make it look like a parade.”

That’s the conclusion of coauthors Patrick Bassett, Paul Houston, and Rushworth Kidder in “Building Character in Crisis,” published in the July 15, 2009 edition of Education Week. 

With the growing public recognition that today’s economic crisis has its roots in a widespread collapse of financial-sector integrity, the coauthors argue that the time is ripe for ethics and character education programs to reassert themselves in public and independent-school agendas.

“We're not so naïve as to think that every child taught ethics will learn it,” they write. “What disturbs us is how little effort is being put into character education in most of America's schools especially during a period when failures of integrity have such direct impact on our economy.”

Patrick F. Bassett is president of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) (http://www.nais.org/). Paul D. Houston recently retired as the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) (http://www.aasa.org/). Rushworth M. Kidder is the president and founder of the Institute for Global Ethics (IGE) (http://www.globalethics.org//).

Their article shares findings from a 2007 report, published jointly by IGE and NAIS, which presents ten key findings on teaching integrity.  The study was conducted on the campuses of ten peer-nominated independent schools, selected for their exemplary attention to ethics and academic rigor.

The findings outlined in the report, “Tell Me What You Really Think: A Report on the Schools of Integrity Project,” are behavioral observations highlighting the most effective steps taken by the study schools to promote character and integrity.  The study presents a host of replicable practices that can help other schools improve the ethical culture of their schools.

“What we were trying to accomplish in writing this article was to help educators understand that these findings, while gathered from the laboratory of independent-school education, are directly relevant to public education,” says Kidder. “I think of it as Pat saying, ‘Here’s what we’ve found in the independent schools,’ and Paul responding, ‘Thanks—the public schools can really use this!’”   

The Institute for Global Ethics is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethical behavior in individuals, institutions, and nations through research, public discourse, and practical action.  Clients include corporations, government entities, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations in the United States and abroad. 

The National Association of Independent Schools acts as the national voice of independent pre-collegiate education and as the center for collective action on behalf of its membership. It serves and strengthens its member schools and associations by articulating and promoting high standards of educational quality and ethical behavior by working to preserve their independence to serve the democratic society from which that independence derives and by advocating broad access for students affirming the principles of equity and justice.

The American Association of School Administrators, founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders in the United States and throughout the world, whose mission is to support and develop effective school effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public education for all children.

Education Week is published by Editorial Projects in Education, Inc., which is a nonprofit organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, whose primary mission is to help raise the level of awareness and understanding among professionals and the public of important issues in American education.

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