There is no single script for effective character education, but there are some important basic principles. This document presents eleven principles that schools and other groups can use to plan a character education effort and to evaluate available character education programs: (1) Promotes core ethical values and supportive performance values as the foundation of good character; (2) Defines "character" comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and behavior; (3) Uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to character development; (4) Creates a caring school community; (5) Provides students with opportunities for moral action; (6) Includes a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed; (7) Strives to foster students' self-motivation; (8) Engages the school staff as a learning and moral community that shares responsibility for character education and attempts to adhere to the same core values that guide the education of students; (9) Fosters shared moral leadership and long-range support of the character education initiative; (10) Engages families and community members as partners in the character-building effort; and (11) Assesses the character of the school, the school staff's functioning as character educators, and the extent to which students manifest good character.