There is nothing more influential in a child's life than the moral power of quiet example. For children to take morality seriously they must see adults take morality seriously.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.

If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits.

People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. Good people - people of character and moral literacy - can be conservative, and good people can be liberal. We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars.

The President is the symbol of who the people of the United States are. He is the person who stands for us in the eyes of the world and the eyes of our children.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue.

If there is one thing educators can agree on, it's this: children do better in school when their parents get involved in their learning.