Character and education.

Nearly half of ninth grade students in the APS will not earn
a high school diploma.

APS spends $600,000 dollars a year repairing vandalism.

Who knows how many kids go to school every day scared,
or bored, or utterly unable for a myriad of reasons, to reach
their potential at school.

The waste is incalculable; and it is unnecessary.

If the APS took Character Counts! seriously, things would be
different.

Character Counts! is not the only model for character education,
but it is certainly among the best. Most importantly, Character
Counts! has not been rejected in favor of a better idea, is has
simply been rejected.

Bullying would be down; and vandalism, and truancy, and
chronic disruption of the educational environment, and
the number of good teachers burned out, not by teaching,
but by the barriers that keep them from teaching.

If there were honest accountability to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence for everyone in the APS, student
to superintendent, test scores would go up; graduation rates
would go up, teacher satisfaction would go up, and students
would attend school with more enthusiasm.

There is no good and ethical reason not to support the most
robust Character Counts! program that can be imagined.

There is really only one reason that there is not a robust
character education model in the APS. It is because there
is not a single leader in the APS who is willing to stand up
as a role model.

There are literally thousands who will say that they are role
models, but there is not one who will prove it. There is not
one who will hold them self actually and honestly accountable
to the Student Standards of Conduct; the Pillars of
Character Counts!

They all sit around wringing their hands and wondering what
they can do do fix things, except for holding themselves actually
and honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct
and competence.

The result is as disappointing, as it is utterly predictable.