Values education: The Power2Achieve approach for building sustainability and enduring impact

Schools today struggle to prepare students for the moral and performance character challenges they will face in the 21st Century. Whether it is bolstering academic performance, reducing dropout, or improving integrity and safety, developing the character and culture of excellence and ethics is a critical need of schools—and yet they must do so with limited time and money amid a sea of competing priorities and mandates, and without the aid of required curricula, training and coaching. In this article, we describe the Power2Achieve Program, a student-centered, teacher-delivered program for developing the character and culture needed for success in school, work and beyond. We lay out the key theoretical and practical features of the program, describe how it aligns with and enhances other current school improvement pedagogies, and present our research approach for continuous improvement and assessment of impact.

► We present the formative research process used to create the Power2Achieve approach.
► We identify eight culture of excellence and ethics areas essential for school and work.
► Developing character competencies occurs through an intentional organizational culture.
► Intentional culture is facilitated by the pervasive use of Power2Achieve teaching and learning tools.
► Establishing sustainability and enduring impact requires balancing convenience and fidelity.