A former teacher turned lawmaker believes Ohio students need to learn character traits like honesty, loyalty, abstinence before marriage and patriotism to lead productive adult lives.
Rep. Kevin Ritter, R-Marietta, says students are struggling because they lack good character, and lawmakers have a responsibility to ensure that education impacts that character.
“Here in Columbus, we spend a lot of time considering what education can do for us, like help us get a job or a promotion, but we spend comparatively less time thinking about what education should do to us,” Ritter told the House Education Committee. “For much of our nation’s history, Americans believed that rather than merely equipping us with the skills necessary for a particular job, education should also impact our character. It should make us better people.”
