Common Schools for Common Education

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a striking decline in our commitment to the ideal of the common school. At least part of that decline may be explained by our impoverished understanding of the common education that befits a diverse society in which citizens aspire to live together on a basis of mutual respect. The widespread assumption that a common education in these circumstances must be confined to the lowest common denominator of moral commitment leads to a distorted vision of the proper purposes of common schooling. I argue that a richer vision of the purposes of such schooling can be inferred from the principle of equal respect, using Rawls's account of liberal democratic virtue. I use that argument also to clarify the kinds of separate schooling that are commendable or at least acceptable from a liberal democratic perspective.