In this week's Weekly Standard, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett and Boston University Ed School Dean Edwin J. Delattre take aim at the character education program included in the education bills now before Congress. They suggest that the main problem lies in the whole idea of character education as a package-a lesson with its accompanying video and worksheet-that schools purchase, train teachers to use, and then evaluate. Instead of teaching about character in a way that is grafted onto the formal curriculum, schools should pay more attention to forming character, which occurs quietly and steadily through the ordinary workings of good schools. For more see "Character, the Old-Fashioned Way," The Weekly Standard, August 20/27, 2001. (Not available online.)
