If these other institutions pretend moral neutrality and do nothing, then our children will fall prey to savagery the moment they are out of their parents' sight. If moral education is reserved solely for families, we turn our backs on children whose families are dysfunctional, whose parents don't have, or won't take, the time to teach them right from wrong. We suspect the claim that parents and not schools should be the only moral educators grows out of the concern that educators will teach values to children which parents will find unacceptable. The ERC understands this concern, and for this reason we, and most other organizations in this field, are making every effort to avoid undermining the primary role of the family in moral education, and to develop a program which will contain nothing offensive to parents. That is why in designing our own video series, Character Way, we have incorporated those values, like responsibility and integrity, on which everyone can agree.
Schools are necessary to the task of creating good children.
Those which are allowed to become moral vacuums are making a statement to their students about the value of behaving well. Any school which is lax about cheating, whose teachers are unfair, which condones racism or sexism, which is not a caring institution, will have an effect on its children which parents will have to struggle to overcome. How much better it will be if schools support the efforts of parents, and parents support the work of schools, and together they work to mold our children into decent, kind, honorable adults. The classroom is a professional environment for learning, and character must be explicitly taught therein. Teachers can use the classroom both as a forum for direct instruction and as an opportunity to lead by example.