Impact of Caring Teachers and Character Values Instruction on Student Achievement in Inner-city Middle Schools

Kwame A. Opuni¹, Karen E. Washington², June M. Giddings² 
(1. University of Houston-Downtown, TX 77002-1001, USA;
2. Houston Independent School District, TX 77092, USA)

Abstract: Many symptoms of character degeneration in inner-city schools have been indicated by the high incidence of fights, bullying, suspensions, youth gangs, generalized display of disrespect, and low achievement levels. In response to such symptoms, a school-based character education program was implemented in Houston ISD in 2006–08. The program sought to improve student achievement by enhancing: (1) teacher levels of caring and fairness; and (2) student levels of caring and honesty. Through a carefully matched-pairs method, based on socio-economic status, ethnicity, gender and baseline reading scores, two cohorts of 6th grade students from the two intervention schools and a comparable non-participating school were monitored over a two-year period. The assessment of program effects indicated that the two program schools achieved higher and statistically significant Teacher Caring levels (effect sizes: 0.10–0.54), and Teacher Fairness levels (effects sizes: 0.74–1.00). The program students also achieved statistically significant gains: (1) in Caring levels (effect sizes: 0.41–0.64), and Honesty levels (effect sizes: 0.59–0.72); and (2) in reading and math (effect sizes: 0.20–0.45), with percentile values from 8 percentile units (58th in Reading) to 17 percentile units (67th in math) higher than that of the comparison group.

Key words: character education, student achievement, values education, middle school, at-risk students