Massachusetts Department of Education Abstract

Contact: Richard M. Salus
Massachusetts Department of Education
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148
(781) 338–6252
rsalus@doe.mass.edu

A Foundation for Citizenship Through Character Education

Application Number: R215V000019
Project Period: 9/1/00–8/31/05
FY 2000 Award: $198,195
FY 2001 Award: $198,195
FY 2002 Award: $198,195
FY 2003 Award: $198,195
FY 2004 Award: $198,195

The Massachusetts Department of Education has formed a partnership with the Boston Public Schools (BPS), and with the Hampshire Educational Collaborative (HEC), which represents Ware and Amherst school districts, the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University (CA-EC), and the Lynch School of Education a Boston College (BC). The partnership is known as A Foundation for Citizenship Through Character Education. Such a broad-based partnership brings together rural and urban school districts from across the state to develop critically needed and timely educational curricula that will build on existing exemplary models of education, such as school-to-career and community service learning. The proposed partnership will also maximize the resources and expertise of two major higher education institutions to ensure that professional development, program evaluation, and curricula creation occur among experienced school-based faculty and practitioners, as well as researchers and scholars in the field.

The proposed pilot partnership project is designed to effectively incorporate a K–12 character education initiative in rural districts of Western Massachusetts and in urban Boston. Character education will not only be incorporated into the daily curriculum of content courses K–12, but also explicitly connected to existing school-to-career models in grades 9–12 in Boston. In the western-based districts, character education will be connected to the existing community service learning in grades K–8. Thus, the pilot project proposes a K–12 model of career education for rural and urban youth, and for schools located in different kinds of geographic areas. This will provide a replicable model for schools that educate rural and/or urban youth, and that educate student populations that are diverse with respect to age, grade levels, and a host of other demographics.

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