Paideia Proposal

Grounded in the democratic principle of equality, the educational system known as the Paideia Proposal was set forth in philosopher and scholar Mortimer J. Adler's book, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto. It was introduced at a time when the quality of the American educational system was coming under fierce attack. A Nation at Risk and other prominent documents of the time were drawing great attention to the deficits in public schools in the United States. In addition to the increasing awareness of mediocrity were glaring images of the inequality in educational opportunities and outcomes. Amidst this furor, a growing movement of whole-school reform efforts was building with the hope that restructuring education would ameliorate the inequities within the system. This entry reviews the Paideia Proposal, presenting the foundational philosophy, the structure of the curriculum proposed, and its current use in schools today.

In 1982, Adler, on behalf of the members of the Paideia Group, presented his plan for whole-school reform in The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (Paideia, py-dee-a; Greek: the upbringing or education of a child). In this volume, Adler, who served as chairman of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, linked the ideals of democracy with the purpose of basic schooling, just as John Dewey had more than a half century earlier. Adler argued that a truly democratic civilization is a politically classless society and therefore requires an educationally classless social order. Democracy, Adler states, is dependent on the participation of all its citizens, as the full citizenry is the ruling class. Therefore, in order to develop an engaged and informed citizenry that can participate fully in the democratic process, the educational system must provide equitable educational experiences and outcomes for all children. Adler claimed that while the American educational system had reached equality in terms of quantity of schooling, with number of years of compulsory schooling and similar length of school calendars, its individualistic, competitive, tier structure was far from providing an equal quality of education for all children.

In The Paideia Proposal, Adler introduces a vision for an equitable, quality education for all. Adler developed this vision in collaboration with a philosophically diverse group of prominent educators who became known as the Paideia Group. Along with Adler, who was the chairman and author of the group's books, the group included such people as Jacques Barzun, Otto Bird, Leon Botstein, Ernest Boyer, Nicholas Caputi, Douglass Cater, Donald Cowan, Alonzo Crim, Clifton Fadiman, Dennis Gray, Richard Hunt, Ruth Love, James Nelson, James O'Toole, Theodore Puck, Adolph Schmidt, Adele Simmons, Theodore R. Sizer, Charles Van Doren, Geraldine Van Doren, and John Van Doren. Together, this diverse group contributed to and endorsed Adler's proposal for an equitable educational system.

The vision of equal quality of education presented in The Paideia Proposal begins by distinguishing [Page 684]between education and schooling. The education of an individual takes a lifetime, beginning with the earliest learning of an infant and ending only at the end of life. Within this lifetime of education, the purpose of schooling has three essential goals for all: to prepare individuals for lifelong personal and professional growth that will continue after schooling, to prepare individuals to be fully responsible citizens within the democracy, and to prepare individuals for earning a living. These three goals of schooling pertain to all individuals and form the educational objectives for Adler's vision of basic schooling.

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