This article reflects on emergent (radical-progressive) languages of democracy to consider what common educational institutions might mean today. It explores distinct philosophical and political tensions that cut across these languages in relation to educational organization and pedagogy including--antagonism versus exodus, transcendence versus immanence, pluralism versus multiplicity, democracy versus communism. In contrast to other theorists in education who have tended to privilege certain conceptual positions in these debates to address a wide range of educational issues, the author argues that these tensions should be read selectively and generatively for linking political questions concerning democracy to educational transformation. In conclusion, the article calls for a language of insurrectional democracy that integrates aspects of each approach and where strategic engagements with, and creative lines of flight out of, public institutions and the State play a role in reimagining a common education for a democratic society to come.