Character education is good news

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It is said a newspaper is a mirror of the community. Read its pages, and you'll get a sense of the kind of community it serves. While our newspaper seeks to report the many good things happening around here, we are obligated to report the bad.

There are petty crimes and vandalism. People are arrested for driving under the influence. Several people were nabbed earlier this week on counterfeiting charges. There are too many drug crimes and too much domestic violence. A man recently was convicted of fatally shooting another man.

There's white-collar crime. Several investment agents have faced charges of defrauding their customers. People report the loss of money they counted on for retirement.

One common thread links these blots on the community - character flaws. Somewhere along the way, people who commit crimes fell through the cracks when it came to developing good character.

In the face of daunting odds, members of one new group - the Character Coalition of the Sauk Valley Area - are trying to stem the tide.

In a story in our paper earlier this week, a spokeswoman said group members want to do more to instill six important pillars of good character in local students and others - trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, fairness, caring and citizenship.

These pillars of character - not tied to any religious denomination, political party or socioeconomic group - are the product of research and thought facilitated by the nonprofit Josephson Institute of Ethics based in Los Angeles. The group identified these six core ethical values in the early 1990s and has promoted them through its Character Counts Coalition.

Since then, the concept of character education has caught on with a lot of schools, communities and organizations. According to Character Counts, it's working. For instance, after Glenbard East High School in suburban Lombard used the program three years, student problems - truancy, insubordination and in-school suspensions - decreased significantly while participation in extracurricular activities rose more than 40 percent.

The local Character Coalition's 25 members hope to sow the seeds of good character through educational efforts targeting students, educators, government officials, churches and others. By developing knowledge, skills and abilities to help people make informed and responsible choices, the group could have a profoundly positive impact.

We tip our hat to this character education effort. As our newspaper continues to hold up a mirror to the community, we hope the Character Coalition's impact begins to show.