Giving Compass' Take:

• This Education Next post discusses an essay by Stanford education historian David F. Labaree about the notion of "common" education and where civic development comes in to play.

• Are we teaching our kids how to be good citizens in the world, rather than just worrying about whether they'll be able to get good jobs later in life? If not, how can we improve?

• Here's how we can encourage more youth civic engagement through the arts.

The distinguished Stanford education historian David F. Labaree recently published a perceptive, provocative essay in the Kappan that I found myself nodding in agreement with about three-quarters of the time and shaking my head the other quarter. His thesis: Over time, American K–12 education has largely replaced its commitment to advancing the public good with a more selfish focus on securing private gains of various kinds.

His account of the need for a robust form of “common” education in the early days of the nation is compelling: “As the founders well knew, the survival of the American republic depended on its ability to form individuals into a republican community in which citizens were imbued with a commitment to the public good.” But as the “common school movement” evolved during the first half of the nineteenth century, it also had to contend with “the possessive individualism of the emerging free-market economy.”

As “public education” spread across the land, therefore, its mission “wasn’t just to teach young people to internalize democratic norms but also to make it possible for capitalism to coexist with republicanism.” ...

[But] Labaree seems to ignore the push for higher academic standards, for closing achievement gaps, for building a “common core” into the curriculum, and for holding schools — all schools, at least all schools that call themselves “public” — to account for their students’ achievement as measured on common statewide metrics.

Read the full article about how education can advance the common good by Chester E. Finn, Jr. at Education Next.