BY STEPHENIE KOEHN ----  News Staff Reporter

HOWELL -Two Livingston County charter schools are getting nearly half a million dollars to create a character education program that teaches civic virtues - including justice, responsibility and trustworthiness.

If successful, the program could end up in classroom use nationwide.

The money, a $473,852 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, will be used in the first of a four-year project to design and test a comprehensive character education program at the Charyl Stockwell and Livingston Technical academies, both in Howell.

Character is something we stress in all our schools, said Chuck Stockwell, founder of Charyl Stockwell Academy and CEO of Smart School Management, a Brighton company that manages the two schools, plus the Grand Traverse Academy in Traverse City. All three will participate in the project.

We focus on teaching students in many different ways how to make appropriate choices, Stockwell said. And we integrate choice into our lessons and the regular procedures and routines of the daily schedule.

Matthew Burns, director of the Michigan Center for Assessment and Educational Data at Central Michigan University, routinely assesses attempts by educational institutions to incorporate character education into curriculums. He also will measure the effectiveness of this program.

Burns said the plan under development by the academies is the best I´ve seen, in part because it´s based on students making choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices.

I think that schools teach character whether they intend to or not, Burns said. So much the better if they do it on purpose.

The grant is part of a nationwide Partnership in Character Education program authorized under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The Department of Education awarded 39 grants totaling $16.7 million under the act. Only one other Michigan school system, the Warren Consolidated Schools, was selected to receive a grant.

In announcing the recipients at a Missouri conference kicking off National Character Counts Week recently, first lady Laura Bush said the grants will help schools teach more than the basics.

Reading and writing are not all we need to teach our children, she said. Respect and responsibility are just as important. And we need to make sure we´re teaching our children to be responsible citizens who have good values and ethics.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, who recommended the schools for the grant said the grant program was highly competitive and he offered congratulations to the Livingston County schools.

It is exciting to see an idea initiated here in Livingston County, Michigan, that could touch the nation for generations to come, Rogers said.

Stockwell said, ultimately, the project could bring $1.6 million to the Livingston academies over four years.

The program will be designed by school leaders with assistance from several area educational experts, Stockwell said. Those experts include nationally respected psychiatrist and educational researcher William Glasser, creator of Choice Theory of Psychology and author of The Quality School, a book based on William Deming´s quality management principles.

More expertise will be brought to the project by Larry Lezotte, a Michigan State University researcher and author of Learning for All, who published the first research on effective schools some 30 years ago.

Department of Education spokesman Dan Langan said the federal grant requires that the programs focus on caring, civic virtue and citizenship, justice and fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness.

All projects will be evaluated by the department to determine success toward reducing discipline problems, improving student grades, increasing participation in extracurricular activities and strengthening parent and community involvement, Langan said.

The project will also provide teacher training, gauge and build community consensus on common values, involve parents in character education and integrate character education into the curriculum, said another Department of Education spokesman, Carlin Hertz.

James Berry, interim associate dean of Eastern Michigan University´s College of Education, said some character education occurs in all schools.

Classroom teachers can´t help but model the kind of person they want their students to become, Berry said. The home is where most children learn about appropriate behavior; the schools are just trying to enhance learning that takes place at home.

Diane Vance, principal of Charyl Stockwell, said the program will not usurp parents´ role as principal purveyors of values and morals to their children.

I see character education and values as two different things, Vance said.

Values and morals are things that children learn from their parents. Character education is helping kids to function extremely successfully in society, helping them to become responsible, reflective and evaluative adults.

Stephenie Koehn covers Livingston County. She can be reached at skoehn@cac.net or (810) 229-8594.

© 2002 Ann Arbor News. Used with permission