Character counts — and soon it could count on student report cards, too.

The Character Lab at the University of Pennsylvania has partnered with the KIPP charter school network and four other schools to pilot a 24-item “character growth” report card that measures students in eight character domains: zest, grit, interpersonal and academic self-control, optimism, gratitude, social intelligence and curiosity.

The new report card is in its second year of field testing. Teachers at the participating schools rate their students on a 1 to 5 scale in each of the eight domains.

The Character Lab researchers are using the report cards to track both how closely the behaviors predict positive school outcomes and whether students can change their behaviors over time.

Education Week, June 2