In our pursuit of academic excellence, we have too often ignored the deeper question: Who are our students becoming? This question is not sentimental. It is civic. It is constitutional. And it is urgent. Education that cultivates only skill but not character leaves students adrift, able to perform but not to serve, to argue but not to reason, to achieve but not to contribute.

America’s founders never separated knowledge from virtue. John Adams wrote that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, self-government assumes self-control. Liberty cannot long survive if it is not tempered by character. Yet in too many schools, the moral core of education has atrophied into vague slogans, outsourced programs, or neglected altogether.

What Is Virtue Literacy?

Virtue literacy is the ability to understand, reason through, and apply moral principles in everyday life. Much like reading literacy enables students to comprehend and communicate ideas, virtue literacy equips students to perceive, relate to, and act on ideals like courage, honesty, diligence, and civility. It is not an add-on. It is the plate on which all other learning rests.

This literacy develops not through behavior charts or compliance incentives, but through reflection, reasoning, and relationships. Instructionally, it requires integrating character into lesson planning, classroom discussions, literature studies, historical analysis, and school culture. When a child reads Heidi and identifies generosity in the protagonist, then reflects on how he might serve others, he is not being moralized. He is being formed.

Beyond Compliance: Character as Core Instruction

Sharon Moss, founder of Noah Webster Academy and a lifelong educator, has emphasized that virtue literacy is not a religious imposition, nor a set of performance metrics. It is a comprehensive developmental approach that cultivates who a student becomes. Moss underscores that character education must be integrated into curriculum, not stapled on as a side activity. In effective classrooms, teachers guide students to infer virtues from historical figures, relate personally to ethical dilemmas in literature, and apply those insights in community and classroom life.

Crucially, this kind of education teaches students how to think, not what to think. It forms conscience. It trains judgment. It respects individuality while building common ground. And it prepares young people not just for college and careers, but for citizenship.

Why It Matters Now

The decline of civil discourse, the erosion of public trust, and the rise of social fragmentation all have roots in a deeper moral confusion. Virtue is not merely personal. It is public. Without it, civic life crumbles. As Sam Adams warned, “when [the people] lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties.”

Research now supports what the Founders intuited: character development improves academic outcomes. A 2021 meta-analysis from the Journal of Character Education found that when schools authentically embed character instruction into the curriculum, student engagement and achievement both increase. But the best gains occur when schools treat character as a whole-school priority—not a weekly lesson, but a living ethos. This matches what Moss observed in her fieldwork: students flourish most when virtue is modeled, expected, and lived.

Education as a Civic Trust

Parents are the primary stewards of a child’s formation, but schools play a powerful supporting role. With the expansion of school choice across the country, families are increasingly seeking educational environments aligned with their values. This is not a culture war. It’s a civic imperative.

For school leaders, this means hiring for character first, then training for method. Teachers who embody the virtues they aim to instill become magnets for trust and admiration. Students emulate authenticity. Conversely, when character language is plastered on walls but ignored in practice, young people disengage. Integrity must be institutional, not just aspirational.

The Road Ahead

Virtue literacy is not nostalgic. It is necessary. As we reimagine American education for the next decade, we must recover this ancient insight: human flourishing depends not only on liberty and learning, but on conscience. That conscience, properly formed, is the true engine of self-government.

Let us then teach not only reading and reasoning, but reverence and responsibility. Let us make our classrooms places where students not only know what is true, but choose what is good. And in so doing, let us help form the citizens that liberty requires.

Further reading

A meta‑analysis of character education programs — Journal of Moral Education (2022): https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1388134

Virtue and the Constitution of the United States — J. M. Finnis (2001): https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/608/

The Science of Character Education — Marvin W. Berkowitz, Chapter in Hoover Institution book (2012): https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/0817929622_43.pdf  Hoover Institution

Does Character Education Matter? – Character and Academic Attainment — Stephen Earl & James Arthur (Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues, University of Birmingham, 2023): https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Insight_Briefing_Paper_JA_SE.pdf  Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues

The Civic Education America Needs — Commentary, Fordham Institute, Nov 2023: https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/liberty-and-civic-education