Background

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A recent trend in education reform promotes the idea of “educational pluralism” as a way for democracies to support multiple types of schools and learners while still holding core values in common. Essentially, this approach would allow taxpayer funds to flow to private schools, while rejecting the “free market” model more libertarian-leaning reformers seek by requiring a mandated curriculum. What is the empirical basis for educational pluralism, and how would this proposal — described as “” by its proponents — work in the United States? Does this represent a new way forward unlike traditional battles over public funds for private schools? Or is it simply presenting unpopular and underperforming efforts to privatize public education in more palatable language? 

“91¿´Æ¬ÍøÕ¾ pluralism” is the idea of treating different types of schools — such as church-based schools, charter schools, or state-run public schools — equally on issues of funding and accountability, rather than adhering to the traditional American ideal of . In such a system, institutional differentiation is elevated in order to give families a wide range of options, in contrast to the ideal of the “common school” embedded in the origins of American public education. The approach, more common in other countries, has gained traction with some US reformers who coined the phrase to promote this perspective. It is presented as a neutral solution to vehement debates about public monopolies and the privatization of education. In the last , educational pluralism has been the subject of numerous academic and , and championed on a prominent .

But what is the empirical record of “pluralism” with regard to its purported advantages? There is little, if any, available evidence in advocates’ “.” In fact, that dataset is largely just a compendium of descriptive case studies on 65 countries. But 56 of the case studies are simply repurposed chapters from a 2012 publication in which “educational pluralism” is rarely mentioned, if at all. There is no attempt to analyze how elements of “educational pluralism” across these different cases are related to important outcomes such as learning, integration, or social cohesion, for instance. The extent of compounding evidence focuses on civic formation, suggesting slight benefits of privatized education on that sole metric. This is a surprising thin empirical basis for a “” proposal.

Pluralism Database: 65 country case studies 

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In fact, the evidence we do have on moving to pluralist-type policies in education strongly suggests that it is associated with , without any improvement — and perhaps — in academic outcomes.

91¿´Æ¬ÍøÕ¾al pluralism entails a somewhat more regulated system of private schools — which are notably unregulated in the US compared to other countries — with exceptions pertaining to subject matter of an intrinsically religious nature, where private schools can deviate from the state-mandated curriculum in certain instances. In contrast to current policies in the US, private schools would need to agree to teach some state-mandated curricula (for instance, evolution) for testing purposes, but would be permitted to further promote their religious beliefs while receiving public funds.

Its advocates argue for educational pluralism based on the fact that other nations use it (although rarely using the term “pluralism”), assuming that this would then work in the US. But many of the case studies they promote, such as Chile and Australia, actually reveal the difficulties in adopting pluralism across contexts. Chile, held up as a model by pluralism proponents, provided public funds for private schools through vouchers, but actually saw its version of pluralism lead to deepening social segregation, and stagnant or declining achievement. Australia’s practice of public subsidies of private schools has also caused greater social segregation in schools.

There is no clear correlation between plural systems and high performance on international education rankings. Results comparing NAEP with OECD metrics for equity and excellence show inconclusive results about educational pluralism as a whole, suggesting other social welfare and educational factors are greater determinants of equity and learning outcomes than the model of funding alone. Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland perform well while serving significant immigrant populations. But the small size of these countries complicates calls for pluralism in the much larger and diverse United States. Scholars of pluralism opine that most international systems make it a point to avoid competition between school environments, a reality implausible in the United States where schools compete on their academic outcomes, and families compete to get their children into the “best” schools.

Pluralism purports to balance two competing, if not contradictory, forces: liberty and independence of individuals and organizations on one hand, and the desire for common standards and social cohesion on the other.  While those issues can be reconciled on a theoretical level at least to some degree, in the actual American policy landscape, those forces are not just in creative tension, but in conflict.  Despite its claims to be a novel path between a purported public school “monopoly” over public funds and complete privatization of public education, pluralism effectively endorses the long-standing agenda of school voucher advocates:  public funds for private schools. In effect, it is essentially the functional equivalent of private school vouchers.

In addition to the fact that pluralism functions much like other privatization programs, claims that regulation would blunt the negative impacts of privatized education are divorced from reality.  Few — if any — private school leaders in the US would be willing to accept a nationally-mandated curriculum, while many taxpayers would chafe at the idea of being forced to fund religious schools that they find objectionable.  So the fact that pluralism is being positioned as a politically neutral compromise in contentious education policy debates is not just rebranding privatization; it’s a bit of false advertising. While its advocates explicitly and strategically seek to avoid terms like “school choice” or “privatization,” pluralism certainly elevates those market-oriented mechanisms: consumer-style choice and public funds to private schools.  It should be no surprise, then, that the idea is celebrated by and that promote privatization.