American teens are 40 percent less empathetic than they were three decades ago. Recognizing that students need more than academic rigor to succeed, a growing number of schools are turning their focus to social-emotional qualities like empathy. But which practices enhance empathy and how will principals know if teachers are implementing them…

Improved teacher morale and improved learning for all students go hand in hand. But what, exactly, do we mean by student learning? And what is the aim of this learning? According to Nel Noddings, the success of our efforts to boost teacher morale through greater collegiality, creativity, and continuity will depend on how we answer these questions.…

At a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges at home and abroad, public schools must do far more to prepare young people to be engaged, ethical advocates of "liberty and justice for all." This article explores what makes some people behave ethically--even at the risk of their own lives--and asserts that developing…

Young people need to rebel and to progress from childish gullibility, through disillusionment and doubt, to adult discernment. To do this they need standards to rebel against and adult judgments to test, accept, or reject. But educated adults no longer provide such standards and judgments. (Author/JG)

Criticizes the "great tradition" article (EA 519 521, this issue), asserting that traditional methods of moral instruction failed because they indoctrinated conduct and did not teach individuals moral understanding. Suggests that indoctrination is incompatible with education. (MD)

Critiques the terminological, historical, prescriptive, and descriptive difficulties in the "great tradition" article (EA 519 521, this issue). It is important that schools teach the application of critical thinking to moral problems. (MD)

A practicing school administrator sympathetic to the broad aims of moral education asks some questions about teaching moral education in the schools. (Author/MLF)

The Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP) is a grass-roots approach to character education that seeks to strengthen student responsibility. Instead of promoting one set of values, it helps schools rediscover their own values and reinforce them. A sampling of several Missouri school districts illustrates the diversity of the process and…

The only way out of our current nadir of morality is to utilize education to bring more ethics into the world. (Author)

When parents neglect their children's moral education and community influences are negative, schools need to form partnerships and work for change. This article reviews problems encountered when schools attempt to inculcate or clarify moral values and summarizes various authors' opinions on the subject. (MLH)

Having served on both sides of the negotiating table, the author condemns the destructiveness of the adversary system and appeals for new forms of communication to replace collective bargaining in education. (Author)

Successful district level institutions share ten principles for successful reforms. The crucial components of change for effective leadership include a collective moral purpose, capacity building, ongoing learning, and demanding culture among others.

Although it is often useful to accept students' value statements nonjudgmentally, values clarification theory recommends that teachers go beyond moral leadership and help students learn to think through their personal values and understand what it takes to live a value-directed life. Methods to promote and clarify our "heritage of moral values"…

Criticizes the ideas of the "great tradition" article (EA 519 521, this issue), pointing out that there is little historical agreement on the nature of morality, and that advocating mindless conformity to externally imposed standards of conduct is to caricature the moral life. (MD)

Author feels that educators should work to oppose censorship or at the very least work to assure that any textbooks or curriculum changes are, as much as possible, in accord with sound learning theory and teaching method. (GB)