© Copyright Tony Wagner, 1996 (first published in Education Week, October 9, 1996)

A growing number of educators and parents are beginning to see the importance of some kind of values or "character" education. But efforts to impose forms of character education with a predetermined set of values onto students and communities often provoke bitter and divisive debate between many liberals and conservatives. After leading discussions on this subject in many widely varying communities over the last five years, I have learned that there are ways to consider these issues that can create new common ground and a significantly improved climate for learning. What follows below is a brief summary of some lessons learned:

Higher standards" and professional development have become unifying battle cries of school reformers. Like apple pie, few can oppose efforts to "professionalize" education, but the real questions are: which standards, decided by whom, and assessed how? And professional development for what?

© Copyright Tony Wagner, 1994 (first published in Education Week, June 2, 1994)

While doing research for a book on school reform in three different communities, I came to understand more clearly the difficulties of working for systemic change within large educational bureaucracies. Many of the best principals and teachers practice what they jokingly call "creative noncompliance'' in order to initiate new programs. When attempting something new, they never ask for permission and they keep a low profile. Others take a more head-on approach and deliberately confront central-office and local-union practices that prevent them from creating better schools for all children--but sometimes at great personal cost.