In concert with policy trends, theory and research on the ways in which school context affects student outcomes have focused almost exclusively on academic achievement in recent years. Given the fundamental role that schools should play in civic education, and the potential for schools to affect civic equality, more empirical and theoretical…

This article articulates a framework suitable for use when making decisions about education policy. Decision makers should establish what the feasible options are and evaluate them in terms of their contribution to the development, and distribution, of educational goods in children, balanced against the negative effect of policies on important…

In "Two Conceptions of Virtue," Thomas Hill reconstructs the conceptions of virtue, and of proper moral upbringing, found in Kant and Rawls. Here I offer some brief reflections on these conceptions of virtue and its cultivation. I argue that Kant's conception of virtue is grounded in a mistaken conception of desire, and that this…

The general questions are: what is virtue and how can it be cultivated? The specific focus is on the conceptions of virtue in the works of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. Kant regarded virtue as a good will that is also strong enough to resist contrary passions, impulses, and inclinations. Childhood training can prepare children for virtue, but…

Deliberative theory has served two purposes in recent studies of education policy-making at the community level in the US: as a lens through which to examine existing practices, and as an ideal toward which to strive. These studies, though, overlook a prior and important theoretical question: "should" deliberative theory be applied to education…