Bankrolling Civility in the Classrooms

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced on Monday that his government will be spending $2 million to start character education programs in the province's schools. Education teams are scheduled to spend the next year in consultation with teachers, parents, and students as to what each sees as the best way to build character in schools. The plan projects the programs' being in place by 2008.
I wonder if we haven't got too little, too late here, Mr. McVoteforme. I've seen the half-assed attempts at teaching civility that so many educators indulge in. Hasn't anyone ever told you, you can't legislate attitude? If you've got people standing at the front of the room who don't really give a shit about much more than the paycheque, you've got a program ready to go nowhere and to get there fast. If you've got impressionable minds spending endless hours in front of the tube, absorbing garbage that promotes the macho I-don't-take-nuffin-from-nobody action man as the hero of far too many pieces, then you've got a program doomed to get a failing grade. If you've got a principal motivated more by having the community perceive his watch as being a perfect paean to peaceful pedagogy than by anything else, you've got a program all set to toss $2 million into the shredder.
I'm not going to hold my breath on this one working any better than any of the previously failed attempts at making our schools into better places. I suggest you don't either.