Founded in 1990, the Institute for Global Ethics® (IGE) is an independent, nonsectarian, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethical action in a global context. Our challenge is to explore the global common ground of values, elevate awareness of ethics, and provide practical tools for making ethical decisions. www.globalethics.org
The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) 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 in affirming the principles of equity and justice. www.nais.org
The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life's biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity.
The vision is derived from John Templeton's commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The Foundation's motto "How little we know, how eager to learn" exemplifies their support for open-minded inquiry and their hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries. www.templeton.org
The Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund also devotes a majority of its resources to independent school education. Major support continues through programs of the Klingenstein Center for Independent School Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. www.klingenstein.org
Over the 18 months between spring 2005 and winter 2006, the Institute for Global Ethics® visited exemplary independent high schools in both the U.S. and Canada. During the course of our study, we spoke to over 500 people, including students, faculty, administration, parents and trustees. Ten schools participated-their settings, size, demographics, and location varied widely. We deliberately sought a diverse group of schools to study in order to approximate the wide range of independent schools across the U.S. and Canada. The findings in this report are common to all these schools, despite their striking differences.
By Patrick F. Bassett - President of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
A theme of the National Association of Independent Schools is that "values are the value-added of an independent school education." With the dramatic rise in the cost of an independent school education over the last decade, a new generation of parents has begun carefully calculating the RoI ("return on investment") for many years of independent school tuition payments. Given that a seemingly increasing proportion of parents misguidedly measure that return on a single factor, acceptance into the parents' very short list of acceptable colleges, this study is a timely and refreshing reaffirmation of the historic role of independent schools: to teach scholarship and character, "values as the value-added."
The Institute for Global Ethics® (IGE) has collaborated with the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and with the Canadian Association of Independent schools (CAIS) to examine exemplary high schools and describe a clear set of replicable “best practices” that address this important balance. After an advisory board for this project was formed early in 2005, NAIS and IGE staff canvassed NAIS and CAIS member associations to build a list of over 40 nominations for participating schools for the project. In consultation with the advisory board, schools were selected according to their academically rigorous learning environments (based on admissions requirements) and their strong commitment to the ethical development of their students (based on nominations from regional independent school associations). The high schools finally selected for this study were chosen to ensure a sample broadly representative of the demographics of NAIS membership, as follows:
The resulting report describes 10 ideas that, although to varying degrees and in a variety of forms, are common to each of the schools participating in this project. Each of these 10 findings forms a section of the report.