Sooner or later, every discussion of K-12 education gets around to the "kids these days" issue. Today's children seem to be on average less respectful of authority, more inclined to disruptive behavior, harder to motivate and generally bereft of deep grounding in the values that undergird the educational process. Some apologists for traditional public education claim that schools are being asked to compensate for what parents have failed to do to prepare their children for learning. Some advocates for private school vouchers say the ability of private schools to explicitly base instruction on religious values are the key to their superiority to public schools in educational results.

But there is now a growing movement to take bullish kids by the horns: to make the basic character virtues most critical to learning -- honesty, courtesy, tolerance, personal responsibility, openness to new information, acceptance of authority, respect for achievement, ability to delay gratification, and so on -- central to the organization of schools and their curricula.

The "character education" movement has received its biggest boost in Maryland, where Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has spearheaded an initiative to make instruction in, and embodiment of, the "civic virtues" a basic feature of daily life in every public school. In an article in the November/December 1997 issue of The New Democrat, Townsend cited national studies showing that character education initiatives have reduced disciplinary problems, truancy, vandalism, and even teen pregnancy rates. Anticipating the argument that character education displaces the role parents play in the moral training of their children, she also reported that in Baltimore, not one parent of the 50,000 students involved has objected. "The only complaint is, 'Why didn't we have this sooner?'"

The recently released report of the National Commission for Civic Renewal has called for widespread adoption of character education, along with instruction in U.S. civic traditions that reflect the same values. U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley is a big fan of character education, and the President praised it in recent remarks to the American Federation of Teachers.

Does character education overburden teachers with an additional responsibility remote from traditional education? Actually, shaping the character of children has always been part of the mission of public education in America. Furthermore, observance of civilized norms of behavior has always been essential to creating an environment in which teachers can teach and students can learn.

Character education reflects the kind of values-based public policy that Americans appear to crave, often over the objections of those on the left who oppose official recognition of moral absolutes, and those on the right who demand official recognition of the religious traditions in which values are rooted. If Maryland is any indication, parents love it, it seems to work, and it's time to try it everywhere.