VALUES AND CHARACTER EDUCATION Character Development in Education: The ABCD’s of Valuing

What role does value and character development play in educating America’s youth? Can values be integrated into the standing curriculum without overloading the system? Will understanding their own values help students make better personal, academic, and life decisions? an our students and society benefit from values and character edu-cation and will it have a positive influence on the rising crime, vio-lence, joblessness, and general despair that is so much on our minds today? At Brick Township High School in Ocean County, N.J., these issues are being addressed through an innovative values and character develop-ment program initiated in 1992. Now in its third year, the evolving program has gained the support of the faculty, students, parents, community leaders, and state politicians. A great deal of attention is being focused on the absence or neglect of values in the character of America’s young people. While there is gener