Journal of - Southern University New Orleans

Journal of Urban Education: Focus on Enrichment 39tions of reality, regardless of our willingnessto be influenced (Kane, Taub & Hayes, 2000).In many countries around the world, educationalsystems are being turned to for assistancewith the increasing levels of moral illiteracyamong their youth. For example, inAsia, character education is not a new oldconcept, as its roots date back beyond thetime of Confucius, with students in countriessuch as in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwanand Singapore receiving schooling in moraleducation (Greenawalt, 1996). In the UnitedStates and most of Western Europe, wherereligion has primarily been removed from thecurriculum, in many developing nations,moral education still plays a major role.In the past 25 years, there have been dramaticincreases in crime, drug use, homicide, suicide,out-of-wedlock births, in addition torising mediocre performances on standardizedachievement tests (Leming, 1997). Also,dishonesty in youth, cheating behavior, poorwork ethic and lack of diligence have beencause for concern of the character developmentof children (Leming, 1996). A Felber(2003) state that there are ten indicators societyis failing to address in terms of moral development.These include violence/ vandalism,stealing, cheating, disrespect for authority,peer cruelty, bigotry, bad language, sexualprecocity and abuse, self-centeredness, andself-destructive behavior. The belief existsthat infusing character education back intothe general curriculum in the nation’s schoolswould help address and alleviate some ofthese issues. During the 1990’s, the goal offoster in character education has once againbecome an important focus in schools (Leming,1996).Incorporating character education into thegeneral curriculum for elementary, middleand high schools has become the fastestgrowing reform movement in the realm ofeducation in the United States today (Williams,2000). In the early days of formal educationin the United States, character educationwas part of nearly all lessons. To supportthe values presented in schools, the home,community and church environments tendedto work hand in hand to continuously reinforceaspects of character education in youngpeople (Greenwalt, 1996).As funding for education was reduced andprograms were cut from the school’s curricula,character education tended to get pushedto the wayside leaving more time for learningthe basic Math, Sciences, English, and SocialStudies. As the social structure of society continuedto change, with less reinforcement ofsocial norms and values in the school setting,various problems related to the nation’syouth tended to grow. To address these concerns,the pendulum seems to be swingingback towards the concepts of including charactereducation in the school’s curriculumwith the hope that the social concerns willdiminish (Field, 1996).There has been limited research conducted inthe area of how character education programsin the schools impact students sociallyand academically. The field of character educationis woefully deficient in producing systematicoutcome research. There is simplyvery little known about the effects of charactereducation. Although opinions aboundand intuitions are plentiful regarding thissubject, scientific data are scarce (Leming,1993). Berkowitz (1998), for example, statesthere is very little empirical data guiding thetraining of teacher educators in the realm ofcharacter education.The primary purpose of this study was to investigatethe effectiveness of a responsibilitybasedcharacter education program on academicperformance and effort. Specifically,the authors studied the degree to which theuse of a responsibility-based curriculum addsto the effect of the standard curriculum on