Would You Like Values with That? Chick-Fil-a and Character Education‪.‬

"Character education" represents a long-standing staple of U.S.A. schools. From the "Old Deluder Satan" Law of 1647 to The New England Primer in the 18th century to McGuffey Readers from the late 1830s (and well into the 1920s), the idea of transmitting core values to the young is so deeply rooted in the history of schooling that "morals" is often assumed to be a "given." (1) Over time, various social and religious concerns melded into a taken-for-granted presupposition that schools should play a major role in transmitting "good character" and fostering character development. Not only is there little contestation about the role of character education in schools, there is a dearth of literature connecting corporatization and character education. Even including Alex Molnar's and Michael Apple's work, little has been written about the specific instances of or connections between commercialism and teaching character in schools. (2) While Kaestle notes that the common school movement was successful in creating an "ideology centered on republicanism, Protestantism, and capitalism, three sources of social belief that were intertwined and mutually supporting," (3) there is little specifically about Christian fundamentalism, character education, and commercialism. Molnar's chapter in The Construction of Children's Character is an overview of commercialism in schools. He provides many examples of corporate intrusion into classroom life and argues that such a presence in schools undeniably influences students' character (negatively). Apple's work, too, is replete with instances of how neo-conservatives and right-wing organizations have increased their power and influence on school policy. While I value and appreciate this work, missing, on my view, are more detailed, "case analyses." This essay attempts to fill that void. I specifically link Christian fundamentalism to a school-business partnership sponsor (Truett Cathy and Chick-fil-A) that provides a character education curriculum ("Core Essentials") for public schools. The emphasis is on deconstructing the "Core Essentials" curriculum while also revealing Christian fundamentalist links to the corporate/school nexus. These links are developed and brought together in what might seem like unorthodox ways, but the links are intended to help us reconsider the degree to which both school-business partnerships, generally, and a Christian fundamentalist-supported character education program, specifically, should be avoided. I explore three main lines of inquiry: (1) the specifics of "Core Essentials" as a strategy for teaching character; (2) the role (and ironies) of private businesses influencing public school curricula; and (3) the assumptions inherent in the kind of teaching of character outlined by "Core Essentials." Girding this inquiry is a concern about the problematic enterprise of teaching character, itself, as if it were an unquestionable domain. Further, the oddly-but-related contexts of childhood obesity findings and Christian influences (both general symbolism and fundamentalist indoctrination) on and in public spheres will be considered via Theodore Brameld's Ends and Means in Education, John Dewey's Moral Principles in Education, and Pierre Bourdieu's Acts of Resistance and Firing Back. (4) To be clear, this essay extends Weber's, Kaestle's, Apple's and others' views of Protestantism merging with capitalism to create historical realities (for Kaestle) or problematic situations (for Weber and Apple) by forcing the element of Christian fundamentalism into the equation. It is not a small matter, on my view, that the curriculum this essay considers is financially supported by a Christian fundamentalist. Indeed, the curriculum, as will be shown, encourages students to financially support the company itself (and corporate chief), thus setting up a cycle whereby unwitting teachers and students finance a Christian fundamentalist's policies that, in turn, support Christian fundamentalis