Education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers, charter schools, hybrid home schooling, and microschools are transforming K–12 in profound ways. In “Talking Choice,” Ashley Berner and I try to make sense of the shifting landscape. Berner directs Johns Hopkins’ Institute for Education Policy and is the author of Educational Pluralism and Democracy. Whatever you think of educational choice, we seek to provide more concrete insight into what it means for students, families, and educators. Today, we discuss a new international effort to establish principles for educational pluralism.
—Rick

Rick: Ashley, you were recently in Switzerland to help launch the Guiding Principles of Educational Pluralism (GPEP) project. You’ve told me that while this initiative may sound esoteric, it could have big consequences for issues like school choice and culture war clashes. Before we get into the particulars, can you remind readers what “educational pluralism” is and provide a bit of context?

Ashley: For those unfamiliar with the term, educational pluralism refers to the way that most school systems around the globe fund a wide range of school types while requiring common academic standards across all of them. For instance, the Netherlands funds 36 kinds of schools equally, and all students take subject-specific tests to ensure shared knowledge. England has funded religious schools since 1833, starting with Anglican schools. Public funding today includes Catholic, Jewish, Montessori, Islamic, Hindu, and secular options. The same is true in Indonesia and Israel, most provinces of Canada, and municipalities in Pakistan and Kenya.

These systems embrace meaningful roles for nonstate actors like nonprofits, community organizations, and the kinds of voluntary groups that de Tocqueville championed in Democracy in America. These organizations form the backbone of civil society. And as we’ve discussed in this column before, civil society plays a leading role in healthy democratic life. Educational pluralism puts it front and center.

The ubiquity of educational pluralism around the world—present in more than 80% of national school systems—and the fact that it’s been around for centuries in places like England, the Netherlands, and Canada, has meant that this arrangement has tended to receive broad political support across left-right divides. That is not universally true, however. Organizations such as the international teachers’ union Education International have recently hosted campaigns that protest public funding going to nonpublic schools. Moreover, new concerns about pluralism in Western democracies and the growth of private schools in Africa, Asia, and Central America make it timely to reexamine how human rights doctrines relate to K-12 schooling.

Rick: All right, so that brings us to the GPEP. Why is this initiative noteworthy?

Ashley: The GPEP initiative is housed at the International Organization for the Right to Education and Freedom of Education, a human rights nonprofit in Geneva. The project includes the input of 20 international experts in human rights, education law, and public policy. We’ll have several convenings—including one in Washington—and opportunity for public comment along the way.

The project engages with major human rights documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Our goal is to produce a document that leaders around the world can use to craft policy and balance competing interests, such as the rights of parents and the responsibilities of the state.

Rick: There’s a lot here to discuss. As you know, I’m very sympathetic to educational pluralism. But I tend to look warily at such efforts. I’m always suspicious that these exercises will yield an impressive-sounding, 30,000-foot consensus that doesn’t touch the ground. Can you speak to how and why these principles matter?

Ashley: This won’t be a consensus document in the traditional sense, meaning something all stakeholders can agree on—like the 2009 Copenhagen Accord on climate change. Those of us on the GPEP project do share a firm commitment to educational pluralism. But we come from different academic fields and continents and from different religious, cultural, and ideological backgrounds. The GPEP will not be embraced by everyone, especially those who view public-private partnerships as a cause for concern rather than a benefit.

I believe these principles will matter in two ways.

First, the international debates around educational pluralism shed light on our domestic education policy conflicts. They are similar to arguments in the United States between charter school advocates and their opponents like Randi Weingarten. The former claim that charter schools bring opportunity to those who need it most while the latter call it “privatization.” One of the UNESCO working groups I joined in June 2024 reflected this divergent stance toward nonstate actors. My contribution, later published in expanded form, argued that “privatization” is an inappropriate way to describe the historically and culturally plural systems found in Europe and many parts of Asia. Others at the working group disagreed. The final report showed both points of view.

More importantly, these principles can have practical consequences in the United States.

Rick: Talk to me about that. What are some of the practical implications? For instance, how might they wind up influencing schooling or school systems in the U.S.?

Ashley: I hope the GPEP will help U.S. policymakers and communities navigate the tension between values-driven private schools and uniform academic standards—a major source of conflict in the United States.

Two principles laid down in the GPEP come into play here. First, there’s the principle that all families should have access to a school that meets their needs and values. That principle derives from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a U.N. treaty signed by 175 countries including the United States. Second, there’s the principle that states are responsible for setting academic standards. That principle harkens back to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, another U.N. treaty signed by the United States.

In practice, these two principles confirm that families should be able to select Evangelical, Jewish, and classical schools or ones based on ethnic studies—but students need at least minimum instruction in the major subjects simultaneously.

Rick: This is all fascinating but also a little abstract. Can you give us a concrete example of what this looks like on the ground?

Ashley: Let’s take a live conflict about Hasidic Jewish schools that resist teaching secular content in favor of intensive study of sacred texts. That’s been a big controversy in New York, with at least 18 noncompliant schools in 2023. How could the GPEP project help?

Well, the Belgian government has reached a compromise with its own Hasidic Jewish schools that is modeled on the principles of educational pluralism. In Belgium, Hasidic schools balance the two principles mentioned above—values and content—by teaching secular subjects in the morning—some starting as early as 6 a.m.—before turning to sacred studies in the afternoon. Politicians in Albany could use the GPEP framework and the Belgian example to find a workable compromise with the Hasidim in New York.

The bottom line is that the GPEP, if successful, will offer internationally benchmarked insights and principles that U.S. leaders, teachers, and parents can use to craft policy and make informed decisions.