Letting a Thousand Educational Flowers Bloom

A new book argues for a pluralistic approach that sounds appealing but could lead to even more problems than we have now

Photo by Duy Le Duc on Unsplash

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To be effective, a curriculum has to cover specific topics—and that means people have to agree on what topics to cover. But political battles can make that agreement seem like an unattainable goal, with the same curriculum drawing fire from both left and right.  A recent book by education professor Ashley Rogers Berner suggests a solution: educational pluralism.

Berner, a director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, argues that a public school system doesn’t have to be politically or religiously neutral, as most Americans assume. In fact, she explains in her recent book Educational Pluralism and Democracy, decisions about curriculum necessarily involve value judgments. And in a country as varied and polarized as the United States, people will inevitably have different values.

Berner points to other countries, and the history of the United States, as models. According to a UNESCO survey she cites, most countries (171 out of 204 surveyed) fund non-state schools to some degree. In the Netherlands, for instance, the government might fund schools that adhere to a secular educational philosophy like the Montessori approach and others that are explicitly Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. (Disclosure: Berner and I know each other professionally and socially.)

Before the late 19^th century, she notes, American education was also pluralistic. Counties and towns used tax money to fund schools that were Lutheran, Congregationalist, Catholic, and nonsectarian. But then an influx of Catholic immigrants sparked a nativist reaction that blocked state funding of Catholic schools—and by extension, other sectarian schools.

But that doesn’t mean public schools shunned religion. Protestantism pervaded schools until the 1960s, when the Supreme Court banned such practices as prayer and Bible-reading on constitutional grounds.

An Escape Valve Against Conflict

Until recently, “public” education meant only that offered by the local school district. Now, in many places, families can also choose to send their children to a charter school, perhaps use a voucher to offset private school tuition, or even receive state funding to help school their children at home.

But Berner would go further to allow government funding of schools that are explicitly religious. Offering a number of schooling options, including religious ones, can function as an “escape valve against constant conflict,” Berner argues, “because, by design, it honors families’ diverse values.”

It’s an appealing argument, especially at a time when red states like Louisiana and Texas appear to be trying to inject Christianity into public school classrooms, sparking outrage in some quarters. Why not have a system that allows some state-funded schools to display the Ten Commandments or teach Bible stories in a way that suggests they’re true, while other schools cater to families that prefer a secular educational experience?

Berner’s book is well-researched, well-reasoned, and well-written. I agree with many of her points. But I find myself unconvinced by her overall argument.

One threshold objection might be that public funding of religious schools violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state. Berner disposes of that argument, which she terms a “myth,” in just a few paragraphs.

She notes that while governments aren’t allowed to make “direct operating grants” to K-12 religious schools, the Supreme Court has ruled that it’s okay to funnel government funds to religious schools indirectly, through parents. So presumably she’s envisioning a system of grants to parents, who could then choose to use them at religious schools. But even if there’s no constitutional barrier to that kind of pluralism, there may be policy considerations that should give us pause.

A Core of Agreed-Upon Content

To be clear, Berner isn’t advocating for unfettered choice. In her view a key component of educational pluralism is that all schools teach a core of agreed-upon content. For example, a student might go to a creationist school (the Netherlands funds 36 of these!) but still have to demonstrate knowledge of evolutionary theory on national exams.

Berner makes a distinction between indoctrination, which occurs “when one set of claims about the world is presented to the exclusion of others,” and exposure. Exposure to ideas that families disagree with can be uncomfortable even in a pluralist system, she acknowledges, but “it feels particularly threatening to parents who have no exit from their given school.”

That may be true, but I have to wonder how a creationist school would “expose” its students to the concept of evolution. I imagine it would be taught as a theory that has little or no basis in evidence rather than (at the very least) a plausible alternative explanation. Students might be able to recite the basics of the theory for an exam, but I suspect many Americans would still have qualms about funding such instruction.

One problem is that—as Berner acknowledges—education isn’t just about what we want for our own children. It’s about the citizenry our schools are collectively creating. Berner sees that as an argument for pluralism: if we can lower the temperature of the battles over content, all students will have a better chance of getting the content-rich education that enables them to become responsible citizens.

I sympathize with that argument. But the fact that education inevitably has implications for society as a whole could lead you in a different direction. Some Americans might not want to fund the instruction of any children in topics they find objectionable, or if done through a lens they find reprehensible.

Berner does say that some kinds of schooling would be off limits: no Nazi or pro-slavery schools, for example. But it seems to me that leaves a lot of grey areas that could prove problematic.

A case in point: at a meeting last year with the top education official in Texas, a conservative parent activist named Jamie Haynes expressed horror at an elementary curriculum the state had made available for free. Haynes objected to, among other things, its inclusion of Greek myths, which she and some other conservative parents see as anti-Christian. She was particularly alarmed at a retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche that said Cupid visited Psyche only “at night.” I would assume that was to explain why Psyche didn’t recognize the god (it was dark). Haynes, however, saw a sexual connotation.

But she wasn’t just concerned about her own kids. “I have been sick to my stomach,” Haynes says, “because this is [going] out to Texas children, everywhere.”

The Public School as Melting Pot

Another possible negative aspect of a pluralistic approach is that it would require forsaking the ideal of the public school as a melting pot, or at least a meeting ground where students from diverse backgrounds can establish relationships and learn to respect each other’s differing points of view. How often that happens in reality is unclear; teachers have reported that discussions of controversial topics are more likely to end in shouting matches than civil dialogue. But at least it’s something to aspire to.

When asked in an interview if pluralism might “fester divisions or make them more entrenched,” Berner responded that it was a “fair concern,” but that pluralism “tries to honor” diversity while resting on “a common understanding of academic success.” But if it honors diversity by enabling families to sort themselves into like-minded groups, is it promoting diversity within individual schools or classrooms, or instead making them more homogeneous?

To these objections, Berner might argue that pluralism has worked well in other countries. But the United States may be different from those countries in ways that make it less likely to work. In a densely populated country like England or the Netherlands, for example, families might have multiple educational choices within a reasonable distance.

But in small towns and rural areas in the U.S., it seems likely that there might be only one choice—and it might well be a conservative Christian one. Perhaps a few families in the area won’t want to send their kids to such a school, for various reasons. But there might not be enough of them to support another school that takes a different approach, let alone multiple other schools.

Common Content Might Not Get Covered

And the situation in countries with pluralistic systems might not always be as rosy as Berner assumes. England does have a loose national curriculum of the sort that she advocates—one that specifies, for example, certain historical periods to be covered without requiring that all schools proceed in lockstep. But, according to English education commentator Daisy Christodoulou, the English curriculum doesn’t provide nearly enough detail to ensure that all students get adequate exposure to the content.

The curriculum might identify a topic like “the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England in the time of Edward the Confessor.” But, says Christodoulou, a teacher might spend six weeks on that topic or just an hour.

Like many other countries, England has a system of school inspections to help ensure that schools are teaching the required content in a meaningful way. Berner raises the possibility of such inspections in the U.S. but dismisses it as not inclusive of hybrid schools and home schooling, as well as too costly to implement at scale. (It’s not clear why it’s affordable in many other countries but not here.)

The other enforcement mechanism, of course, is government testing. Berner sees the “exit exam” as a less intrusive means of ensuring that all schools are playing from the same curricular “deck.” But she seems to realize that an exam at the end of high school is too little and too late. To be effective, tests need to assess whether students are learning the required content throughout their school careers.

Even in England, according to Christodoulou, “the vast majority of the national curriculum is not assessed.” At the primary grades (what we would call elementary), only English and math are externally assessed, and even at some higher levels assessment is indirect and spotty.

In the U.S., as Berner is well aware, the situation is arguably worse, with reading and math as the only regularly tested subjects in most states through middle school—and no content-specific state exams in high school either. In most elementary and some middle schools, this testing regime has led to many hours of practice on the kinds of comprehension skills that appear to be measured by standardized reading tests—and little or no instruction in social studies and science.

Berner calls for testing to be tied to the content of the curriculum, which would make a lot more sense, and holds up a pilot program in Louisiana as a model. But Louisiana is unique in that most schools are using the same literacy curriculum. And even there, it’s been hard to get districts to participate in the pilot, perhaps because the concept is so different from what educators are used to.

Theoretically, states could allow schools to use tests developed by curriculum publishers and tied to the specific content in the curriculum, as Berner briefly suggests (assuming there is content in the curriculum). But as she acknowledges, there are significant bureaucratic obstacles to such a development.

Why Not Rely on State Content Standards?

I would like to be able to embrace Berner’s vision, but at this point I see the route from here to there as fuzzy and dotted with potential hazards. And Berner seems to overlook the fact that every state already does specify, at least in a general way, the basic topics to be covered at each grade level. They do that in the form of academic standards in science and social studies. Why not simply link the state reading tests that carry so much weight to the content set out in those standards?

Berner might object that most of those standards aren’t very good, especially in social studies—and I would heartily agree. They’re often ridiculously vague, encyclopedic, or incoherent. One reason they stay on the books is that—because there are usually no tests attached to them—no one pays them much attention. Linking high-stakes tests to the standards might lead people to realize they need improvement.

But another reason those standards are likely to stay on the books is politics. As we’ve seen recently in several states, revising standards—especially social studies standards—can be a fraught endeavor.

Quoting her friend Chris Stewart, Berner observes that “educational pluralism means everybody gives up something.” That’s also true of education in general, if it’s going to work, and we seem to be having a hard time doing it. The bipartisan Virginia state board of education, in approving new social studies standards last year, could provide a model for others.

Berner would argue that it’s easier for people to give up something if they know they’ll have more freedom of choice. Perhaps. But I worry that in enabling the degree of freedom she advocates, we might all be giving up too much.