In fact, as Ethan Demme quipped, “When it comes to classical education, mathematics is often the Cinderella sister: she lives in the home along with her sisters Literature, Language, and History, but she’s not really considered part of the family.” Yet, with mathematics comprising four-sevenths of the liberal arts, how mathematics should be taught in classical schools is a critical question to consider.

Does a math classroom become “classical” by including content different from the conventional math courses found in most U.S. classrooms? Does it become “classical” by employing a certain type of pedagogy? By objectives and assessments that go beyond application? Is it some combination of all of the above?

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Rather than making a normative, philosophical argument for the definition of classical math education, we address an important, often overlooked step in this article: to take account of the judgments of those already engaged in the work. We gathered data from a nationwide survey of teachers and leaders in the classical education movement to do just that. We focused on answering two key questions. First, what do educators believe a classical math classroom should look like? Second, how do those beliefs compare to what students report actually experiencing? The findings reveal both encouraging alignment and notable gaps—offering important insights for educators seeking to implement with greater fidelity a classical vision of mathematics education in their classrooms.

A Conjoint Experiment on Educational Beliefs

To move beyond abstraction, we presented study participants with concrete descriptions of different hypothetical mathematics classrooms—each differing in course emphasis, instructional approaches, student evaluation practices, and kinds of teacher expertise. Table 1 shows the range of possible descriptions that could appear in each of the four categories. Although these four categories could be delineated further and considered alongside additional categories, we determined these four categories best captured the experience of the math classroom while making the survey manageable for respondents.

Participants were presented with pairs of hypothetical math classrooms, each randomly populated with one of the possible descriptions for each of the four categories. We then asked participants to judge and select which of the two most closely reflected a more ideal classroom. Figure 1 below shows an example of a pair of hypothetical classrooms that could be shown to participants. For each pair, participants identified which of the two hypothetical classrooms was more ideal in their view. Each participant completed this exercise for four different pairs of classrooms.

Figure 1: A sample response screen from the conjoint experiment

With 470 participants and four pairs of classrooms considered, we have observed 3,760 decisions (470×4×2). Since descriptions of classrooms across the four categories were randomly populated, analyzing which classrooms that participants did or did not select allowed us to estimate how much each description independently affected the probability that a classroom was selected as ideal by participants. In short, we are able to better understand and quantify the salience of each of the descriptions.

What Classical Educators Value

What features do classical school leaders and teachers think a math classroom should have? The results are shown in Figure 2, which depicts the probability that a classroom with a given description was selected. Recall that pairs of classrooms were presented. So instances in which a description was selected half of the time (receiving a score of .5) are signals that the description was not salient for characterizing whether a classroom was classical or not. However, classrooms with descriptions selected more than half of the time indicate that participants believed those descriptions are essential characteristics of classical mathematics classrooms. Conversely, classrooms with descriptions selected less than half of the time indicate that participants believed classical mathematics classrooms should not have those characteristics. Three key findings emerged, which we discuss in turn.

Figure 2: Probability that a class with a given description was selected

Note: 95 percent confidence intervals shown. Confidence intervals that overlap 0.5 suggest that classes with that description were selected at a rate no different than random chance; that is, that description was not salient for respondents.

Figure 2: Probability that a class with a given description was selected

Finding #1: A Preference for Meaning Beyond Utility

Educators showed strong support for classrooms that emphasize the intrinsic value of mathematics—its beauty, mystery, and capacity to cultivate wonder. While practical applications were not rejected, they were generally less central to respondents’ vision of a classical mathematics classroom. This suggests that classical educators see mathematics not merely as a tool, but as a discipline that shapes the mind and elevates the intellect.

At the same time, the historical dimension—including engagement with primary sources and the stories of mathematicians—surpsingly, held little appeal. On the surface, this stands in tension with the broader commitments of classical education, where historical understanding is considered essential. That such an emphasis diminishes in mathematics raises a deeper question about whether the discipline is being treated differently in principle, not merely in practice.

Finding #2: The Importance of Pedagogical Balance

When it came to instructional strategy, respondents consistently favored a balanced approach that integrates both direct instruction and student exploration. This finding challenges simplistic dichotomies. Classical math instruction is neither purely lecture-based nor entirely discovery-driven. Instead, it appears to require a thoughtful integration of clear, structured explanation with opportunities for students to grapple, explore, and reason independently. This runs counter to prevailing trends in progressive education that over-extend their emphasis on inquiry-based learning. Yet it also runs counter to the modern, lecture-driven approach to mathematics that focuses on direct instruction to transmit information.

Finding #3: Still More to Learn on Assessment and Teacher Expertise

On assessment, valuing correct answers versus valuing creative thinking seemed to have no significant impact on respondents viewing that math classroom as classical. The same appears to be true when it comes to preferring teachers well versed in mathematics versus teachers with great pedagogical skill. This is not to say that classical teachers and leaders do not have opinions on these categories, merely that these categories were less influential on responses than were the type of instruction and the course emphasis. Whether or not assessment practices or the nature of teacher expertise should more greatly factor into the teaching of mathematics in classical settings is also worth considering.

Taken together, these findings suggest that classical educators are less concerned with what mathematics is used for than with what it is—a shift that places meaning prior to utility, even if that priority is not always fully worked out in practice.

What Role does Experience and Training Play?

While these general patterns held, important differences emerged across subgroups of participants distinguished by their experience in a classical setting and whether or not they ever received training in teaching mathematics in a classical setting. These findings are depicted in Figure 3 and Figure 4, respectively.

Figure 3: Results separated by years of teaching experience in a classical school

Figure 4: Results separated by whether teachers have received training in teaching mathematics classically

Educators who had received training in classical methods, or had at least three years of experience in a classical school tended to show stronger preferences for the intrinsic appreciation of mathematics with less preference for practical applications. The other facets remained fairly similar with only slight variations. This suggests that classical training plays a meaningful role in shaping how educators conceptualize the core emphasis of mathematics instruction.

Even so, teachers with less experience in classical schools or training in teaching mathematics classically still endorsed classes that emphasized beauty, joy, and wonder. This suggests that an emphasis on beauty, joy, and wonder is not sufficient in and of itself to make a math classroom distinctly classical—math teachers new to classical education, and perhaps many who are not even classical educators, value this emphasis as well.

What Students Actually Experience

While understanding educator beliefs is important, a critical question remains: Do these ideals translate into classroom practice? It is one thing for educators to identify ideals of a classical math classroom in principle. It is quite another for their classrooms to look as such. To explore this, we examined student reports of what their math classes actually look like. The following data comes from a survey of 275 upper school students (in grades 7 and above) at a single, established K-12 classical school so it is not as representative as the data from teachers and leaders. Still, it is worth reflecting upon the findings from these students as to how they experience mathematics.

Class Emphasis

Students were asked to respond to multiple Likert-type items asking how often their math teacher implements a practice in class. Their reports about their classroom experience tended to align with what educators purported to value in math classrooms.

For instance, roughly half of all students reported that their teacher made them encounter wonder, joy, and a sense of beauty in their mathematics classes “every lesson” or “almost every lesson.” This result suggests a strong emphasis on these aspects of mathematics at least at this school and is in keeping with the findings discussed above about what teachers say they value.

By contrast, only a third of students reported experiencing their teacher in almost every lesson emphasizing the practical use of mathematics: as job preparation, in connection to science, engineering, and finance, or other everyday applications. An even smaller minority reported engagement with the historical background of a mathematical discovery (16%), the lives of mathematicians (10%), or primary sources (7%). This finding, too, is in keeping with the earlier findings about what teachers say they value.

While there seems to be agreement between teacher beliefs and student experience in these areas of class emphasis, there are still lingering questions that will be important to address in the future. Teachers value beauty, joy, and wonder and students notice, but that prompts the question of how beauty, joy, and wonder are being emphasized. Are students being presented with beauty abstractly, as in viewing a golden spiral or a fractal? Or are students being guided to see how the math they are learning and producing can be beautiful, eraser marks and pencil smudges in all? In general, how can such abstract goals be translated into daily instruction?

Despite support in the classical movement for teaching from a historical perspective, it appears less frequently in classroom practice. Why is that? Perhaps due to time constraints, the curricular demands of covering other objectives, lack of accessible resources, or lack of actual knowledge of math history on the part of most teachers. It will be worth exploring how to make the history of math more accessible for educators and students. Of course, mathematics classrooms should not devolve into mere history of mathematics classrooms. Even so, could attention to history in math classrooms offer students a presentation that reflects with more integrity the whole of the mathematics tradition?

Pedagogy in Practice

In terms of instructional strategy, students at this school reported experiencing both direct instruction and opportunities for exploration. For this set of outcomes, students in our sample were compared against what goes on in a representative sample of 8th-grade classrooms across the United States identified for the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Figure 5: Students reporting experience with direct instruction as compared to TIMMS data

Figure 6: Students reporting experience with student exploration as compared to TIMMS data

Students from the classical school report experiencing more direct instruction than 8th graders in general, particularly in the areas of memorization and teacher explanations. There was also a heavier emphasis on working on problems in groups in the classical school. However, students in the classical school report comparable experiences with instruction aimed towards student exploration when compared with other 8th graders. One noticeable exception is that students in the classical school were asked much more often to complete challenging problems that go beyond what they were taught. This offers some evidence that this classical school does not focus on primarily direct instruction or primarily student explorations, but offers a combination of both. This aligns closely with educator preferences, suggesting that the ideal of pedagogical balance is being implemented to some extent.

Commentary about Findings

What emerges from these findings is a departure from the dominant assumptions of contemporary schooling. Mathematics, in the classical vision, is not treated primarily as an instrument, but as a discipline worthy of contemplation in its own right. In this sense, classical mathematics education seeks to recover an older view of the subject: one in which the study of mathematics contributes to the formation of the student’s whole person, cultivating virtues that can only arise from encountering truth, beauty, and goodness.

A key insight is that such a vision places considerable demands on the teacher. It is not enough to manage a classroom effectively or to guide students through a sequence of procedures. To teach mathematics classically, one must in some measure have experienced the subject as something more than procedural. One cannot teach mathematics as beautiful without first having encountered it as such. Without this experience, appeals to aesthetic or intrinsic value risk becoming hollow. If beauty, joy, and wonder are important to the classical math classroom then teacher formation should be a central concern.

At the same time, the findings point to the difficulty of realizing this vision in practice. To teach mathematics in a way that cultivates a sense of wonder requires time, resources, and institutional support, as well as a repertoire of pedagogical strategies. Even the effort to balance direct instruction with genuine student exploration demands a degree of judgment and flexibility that is not easily acquired. And if classical schools value situating mathematics within its historical development, much more professional development in this area is required.

Math education more broadly is trending in very applied directions with heavy emphasis on statistics and data literacy. If the classical movement diverges from broader trends in mathematics education, it will need to reckon with the tensions this creates for students as they move into college and the workforce. It will also need to put in the work to persuade students (and parents) that the love of math for its own sake is the better foundation for future studies and work in applied fields.

If there is a central challenge revealed here, it is this: classical mathematics education calls teachers to hold together ideals that are often separated in practice. Clear instruction and student exploration, correctness and creativity, utility and contemplation—these are not opposing aims, but neither are they easily harmonized. The task, then, is not to choose among them, but to order them rightly. Doing so will require not only further reflection, but the gradual development of materials, teacher habits, and professional support communities capable of sustaining such an approach over time.

Conclusion

What does it mean to teach mathematics classically?

Our study offers a window into how educators think about this challenge—and how those beliefs are (and are not) reflected in classroom practice. Encouragingly, there is substantial agreement on key principles: the importance of beauty, joy and wonder, and the value of balanced pedagogy. At the same time there arose surprising results in a diminished view of integrating the history of math and the stories of famous mathematicians. If teaching math classically is about reorienting our understanding of the discipline itself, not merely as a set of tools, but as a profound human endeavor that invites students into truth, beauty, and wonder, the historical experience of humans pursuing mathematical knowledge cannot be ignored. Classical educators say history matters in other subjects but it is not prioritized in mathematics. That’s a philosophical inconsistency worth exploring more directly.

Our hope is that this study brings to light the need for continued reflection, support, and development on what it means to teach math classically. Bringing that vision to life in the classroom remains an ongoing task. The task is not merely to define such an education, but to undertake the patient work of embodying it–of providing both philosophical and practical support for teachers committed to the classical tradition–so that mathematics may be taught not only as something to be used, but as something worth knowing.

Sandra Schinetsky has been teaching at Regents School of Austin since January 2017, having previously taught junior high mathematics in Louisiana public school for seven years and earning the title Teacher of the Year in 2011. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in Mathematics Education from Texas State University, having earned both her master of education and bachelor degrees from Louisiana State University. At Regents, she has taught Algebra I, Geometry, and Precalculus. In 2020, she was a speaker at both the SCL and ACCS National Conferences of a workshop entitled “Engaging Students in a Meaningful Mathematics Harkness”; in 2021, she was the Facilitator of Math and Science for the SCL National Conference; in 2023, she was a speaker at both the SCL and ACCS National Conferences of a workshop entitled “Those Who Teach, Know: Utilizing Dialogue as a Form of Assessment”; and in 2025, she was a speaker at the SCL National Conference workshop entitled “A History Teacher and a Math Teacher Walk into a Classroom: Is Inter-departmental Collaboration Worth It?”. She is also a founder and senior consultant of Restoring Mathematics, LLC, an organization helping to train teachers to teach math classically.

Dr. Wilkerson currently serves as the K-12 Mathematics Department Chair at Regents School of Austin where he has taught since 2012. He oversees the math curriculum at Regents, in written form as well as in human form in the training of teachers. He believes strongly in the teacher as the living curriculum and the storyteller for the students. He holds degrees in Mathematics (BS, Texas A&M University), Theology (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary), and Math Education (PhD, Texas State University). He is passionate about restoring faith in the teaching of mathematics and has written extensively on this topic for various publications as well as his own website, GodandMath.com, and he is the acting president of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences. Along with several colleagues he founded the consulting group Restoring Mathematics LLC which works with teachers, administrators, and parents at classical schools on how to teach math classically and cultivate the mathematical affections of students.

Dr. Jonathan Gregg has a B.A. in Mathematics and English from Hillsdale College, an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Mathematics Education from Michigan State University. For the past eleven years, he has taught in the Mathematics and Education departments at Hillsdale College, and he was recently given the Emily Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence in the fall of 2024. Previously, he served as the Assistant Director of the Barney Charter School Initiative, and before that, he taught middle and high school mathematics in the Great Hearts charter school system. His most recent publication was the Archimedes Standards, a set of PreK-12 mathematics standards to replace the Common Core. He lives in Hillsdale with his wife, Casey, and their four children, Eliana (9), Simeon (6), Mattia (3), and Carinna (1).

Albert Cheng is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, where he teaches courses in education policy and philosophy. He is the director of the Classical Education Research Lab, a research initiative that seeks to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of classical education. He is a Senior Fellow at Cardus and serves on the governing board of Anthem Classical Academy in Fayetteville, AR. He taught high school math at James Logan High School in Union City, California after completing his undergraduate studies in pure mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. He later returned to school, receiving a master’s degree in education from Biola University in 2012 and his PhD in education policy from the University of Arkansas in 2016.

Over three days, teachers, scholars, school leaders, curriculum writers, philanthropists, and think tankers came together to listen, discuss, reflect and fortify one another in the glorious February sunshine that is Arizona’s specialty. The result was more than a conference. It was a reminder that American classical education is a variegated tradition – one that grows stronger when its various strands intersect, contend with, and learn from one another.

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As Andrew Ellison recently put it in a penetrating essay on the past, present, and future of the sector, “we classical and liberal educators, if we are to pick up the cultural thread, however thin and frayed it may be in some places...will have to divide the labor, work diligently in our own spaces, do our best to stay informed of and learn from what others are doing, reject all temptations to separatism, partisanship, denominationalism, and the pronouncing of anathemas – no “People’s Front of Judea” vs. “Judean People’s Front” odium – and maintain a clear view of the whole...”

Such a disposition is correct both in principle and as a matter of pragmatism. We must resist the errant taxonomizing of the classical world expounded by certain pundits in recent times. Our common endeavors are best advanced through the cultivation of dense reciprocal relationships and the robustly integrated ecosystem necessary to enlist and sustain ever more souls in the Great Conversation from kindergarten through undergraduate study and beyond.

The long-standing relationship between Great Hearts and Hillsdale College is a great case in point. While certain commentators appear determined to draw stark, partisan distinctions between Hillsdale’s and Great Hearts’ approaches to classical education, we do not regard the differences between our organizations as fundamental. We are friends and collaborators engaged in the elevated purpose of bringing children into communion with the best that has been thought and written.

For many years now, some of Great Hearts’ finest teaching talents have come to us by way of Hillsdale, just as Hillsdale has been a popular and fulfilling destination for some of our best graduates. At our recent Symposium, many Great Hearts teachers were edified by the contributions of Hillsdale’s Jonathan Gregg and Kathleen O’Toole, just as they have found indispensable practical wisdom in Dan Coupland’s recent book Tried and True: A Primer on Sound Pedagogy . We look forward to continued collaboration and mutual enrichment in coming years.

We are likewise thankful for the continued partnership of other fellow charter networks (especially those who dependably send delegations to Symposium year after year) who continue to demonstrate that fidelity to the tradition is not incompatible with public charter models nor broad accessibility. Similarly, our work is edified by the many Christian classical schools and networks, and the growing number of Jewish classical schools, who’s fidelity to their respective faith traditions anchors classical education not just in the true and the timeless, but above all, the transcendent. We are grateful to the curriculum writers and publishers who have done the slow, meticulous work of assembling materials that respect both the intelligence of students and the integrity of the disciplines. And we are greatly encouraged by the growing number of colleges and universities committed to serious study of the liberal arts, and the preparation of teachers who know something worth teaching. And then there are the homeschoolers. For decades, long before classical school networks and associations gained national attention, parents kept the tradition alive around kitchen tables and in church basements. They translated Latin verbs, read Plutarch aloud, and organized co-ops before anyone thought to call it a “movement.” Much of what is now praised in classical schools was practiced, quietly and without subsidy, in those homes.

Over the decades, goodwill, hospitality, collaboration, and exchange have been hallmarks of this work and must continue to be, especially as classical “comes of age” and attracts increasing notice from the chattering classes and officialdom. There are many strands to the classical education braid. The enduring purpose of the Great Hearts National Symposium is to bring these strands together to discuss and discern the means and ends of our common endeavors. To that end, we hope you will join us at our next “big tent” National Symposium, February 24-26, 2027, in Tempe, Arizona to explore the pressing theme of: “Recovering Reading and Reason in a Distracted Age”!

Please also consider submitting a presentation proposal here.

Dr. Helen Baxendale is the Chief of Staff and Vice President of Strategy at Great Hearts Academies, a rapidly expanding network of classical liberal arts charter schools educating nearly 30,000 students to the highest standards across Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana. Before leaving Australia to pursue graduate studies in the UK, Helen worked for several years as an advisor to the Hon Christopher Pyne and the Hon Tony Abbott, and served for two years as a high school History and English teacher under the auspices of the Teach for Australia Program. She has also worked as a consulting policy analyst to public sector agencies, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and multinational companies in Australia, the UK, and the United States. Helen has a doctorate and master’s degree in public policy from the University of Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a first class honors degree in political science and history from the Australian National University.

​Dr. Carol McNamara is the Director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education, one of the leading networks of K-12 classical schools in the world. She is an experienced founder of myriad academic start-ups and long-time professor of political science and political philosophy. She previously served as senior director for the Center for Constitutional Design at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and associate director for public programs for the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. She has a deep interest in American civic and liberal arts education.

It will shock precisely no one when we state that our current civic health is poor. But it may shock readers to learn just how close it is to being on life support. A free society cannot survive if a significant portion of its rising generation regards violence as a permissible tool for addressing speech and ideas. Unfortunately, the polling we recently conducted at the Institute for Governance and Civics reveals an uncomfortably large number of people embracing political violence.

In a nationwide poll we conducted roughly two weeks after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, we asked nearly 1,500 Americans how they understand the relationship between words and physical harm—and whether they believe violence can ever be a legitimate response to speech they find intolerable. Fifty-nine percent of respondents agreed that some forms of speech can be as damaging as physical violence. Perhaps more importantly, 11% of all adults and 19% of those under thirty said physical violence is sometimes justified to stop someone from saying harmful things in public. Over 30% of young liberal respondents agreed that violence can be justified to stop speech.

In a separate poll, we found disturbingly low levels of political tolerance in the social space. For example, 30% of adults said they would not date someone with whom they disagreed politically. One cohort of respondents was twice as likely to say they would rather date an ex-felon than a political opponent.

The same intolerance has crept into economic decisions. Roughly 21% of respondents aged 18 to 24 refused to sell their goods to opposite partisans. Older respondents did not display nearly that kind of refusal. Buying practices reveal similar trends with nearly 22% of respondents aged 18-24 refusing to buy from opposite partisans. Older respondents, again, revealed more tolerance. Experience has taught us that one of the most effective ways to ensure peace is through trade, but our younger adults seem not to have learned the value of economic liberty.

Classical Education Lays the Foundation

The polls lay bare a civic crisis. That crisis is, first and foremost, a crisis of the soul—and the great books of the Western tradition remain the best remedy we have ever found. Classical education is doing irreplaceable work in thousands of classrooms, and we are thankful for every one of them. The type of learning offered in a classical school promotes the knowledge and virtues needed today. The classical tradition teaches both the importance of guarding our speech, so as not to incite or injure others, but also how to respond to the speech of others. Ideas contend with ideas. Reason over passion. This is the education that forms citizens capable of civil disagreement and civic friendship across the deepest divides. Examples of this abound in the western cannon.

Anyone who has spent time with the great books has seen example after example of the dangers of speech. Homer begins the Iliad not with clashing armies but with a quarrel. Agamemnon’s insult to Achilles’s honor is a verbal wound that costs thousands of Greek lives. Shakespear’s works are replete with similar examples. In Julius Caesar, Cassius plants forged letters and poisonous insinuations that persuade Brutus to murder his friend. And can we forget how a simple bite of a thumb (a form of speech) caused so much trouble on the fare streets of Verona? Arthur Miller’s The Crucible offers another illustration where accusations and lies send innocent people to the gallows.

Of course, the classics do not merely diagnose the disease; they prescribe the cure. When Cicero faced the armed conspiracy of Catiline in 63 BC, he did not raise a private militia. He went to the Senate and delivered one of the most important pieces of public reasoning in human history, the First Catilinarian Oration. His words exposed the plot, rallied legitimate authority, and forced Catiline to flee Rome. When force finally came, it came constitutionally, not through mob fury.

Socrates, condemned to death by an Athenian jury, answered his accusers not with threats but with relentless questions. Pericles, in the Funeral Oration, praises Athens precisely because its citizens settle differences through open debate rather than coercion. The Federalist Papers are eighty-five essays of layered, sometimes biting, always reasoned argument. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural answers four years of carnage with “malice toward none” and “charity for all.” Martin Luther King Jr. transformed a nation not with bullets but with moral clarity displayed and spoken aloud.

With the spread of classical education, Homer, Shakespeare, Cicero, Lincoln, and King are alive again in thousands of classrooms across the country. That is a triumph.

And yet, while reading the great books is a critical step in forming effective citizens and responsible leaders, more must be done. Students must learn both to engage deeply with the great ideas of the past and to develop the skills necessary to navigate and apply those ideas in today’s world.

Civic Pragmatism—A Balancing Role for Social Science

While the reading of great books cultivates logical and rational reasoning, effective citizens must also be capable of empirical reasoning. That is, they must be able to evaluate claims using observable evidence, data, and real-world outcomes. Not all arguments are made with words; some arguments are made with data. We need citizens who can answer bad arguments with better arguments—and bad statistics with better statistics. That is what civic pragmatism delivers.

Civic pragmatism involves teaching the liberal arts and social sciences.

The social sciences can teach students strong analytical skills like causation, research designs, and related matters. Social science trains students to evaluate evidence, question assumptions, interpret data, and understand cause-and-effect in human behavior. These are the same skills needed in law, policy, public service, and leadership. They are also the same skills needed to determine whether an incumbent is responsible for the economy’s decline or improvement, whether a policy caused an outcome, and whether a proposed policy will improve the state of affairs.

Additionally, the social sciences can educate citizens on how things like institutional rules or designs influence outcomes. That awareness drove the authors of the Federalist Papers, and the lessons are no less important today. Citizens today regularly hear about ranked choice voting, gerrymandering, the filibuster, executive orders, the major questions doctrine, and similar items. These are all institutional design questions that generate unique substantive outcomes. Citizens must be trained to understand the importance and measurement of institutional design.

More prosaically, many jobs—to say nothing of leadership positions—require training in the kind of skills naturally conveyed in the social sciences. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Data Scientists are the 4^th fastest growing occupations in America today (behind wind turbine techs, solar panel installers, and nurse practitioners). The World Economic Forum provides similar predictions. If we want to create effective citizens and responsible leaders, we must place wise people in good jobs. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist 79: “a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” Train students well. Get them jobs so they enjoy economic liberty, and then position them to lead.

A liberal education must be completed by deliberately weaving policy reasoning, statistical literacy, and legal literacy into the heart of civic education. Civic pragmatism is not “soulless technocracy” sneaking in the back door. It is the recognition that the very habits of judgment the great books teach—careful interpretation, respect for context and precedent, the reconciliation of competing goods—are the same habits used to evaluate empirical evidence responsibly.

Citizens are bombarded daily with manipulated numbers, cherry-picked graphs, and “studies show” claims that shape fear and fury that spread on social media. To keep the public square civil, the rising generation needs the plain empirical skills to spot a rigged chart as quickly as they spot a rigged argument.

Mark Twain once quipped, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Twain most popularly communicated an idea that persists today—that statistics are simply tools to be manipulated. Or, as Twain also said, “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Perhaps true—but all the more reason to arm students with knowledge to detect such behavior, shine a light on it, and improve it.

Conclusion

In the end, just as Shakespeare trains us to see through Iago’s whispers and Cicero teaches us to weigh evidence in the service of justice, so empirical literacy trains citizens to see through shoddy claims, and policy analysis teaches us to weigh trade-offs in the service of the common good.

We return to the notion of harmony. Harmony makes a song memorable. And so it is with training the next generation of effective citizens and responsible leaders. We must give them the skills from the liberal arts and a classical education. But we also must train them in the social sciences. That is civic pragmatism.

The goal is still the same: forming whole citizens, knowing and capable, appreciative of their inheritance and who are ready to defend it with moral clarity and empirical precision.

Ryan Owens is Director of the Institute for Governance and Civics, Professor of Political Science, and Affiliate Faculty in the FSU College of Law. He specializes in law and courts, focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate courts, and judicial behavior. Owens’s work has appeared in major journals such as the American Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Politics. He has received research support from the National Science Foundation and Harvard, and was the inaugural recipient of UW-Madison’s undergraduate mentoring award.

James V. Shuls, Ph.D., is the Branch Head of Educational Liberty at the Institute for Governance and Civics. A nationally recognized expert on education policy and school choice, Dr. Shuls’ research focuses on K-12 finance, teacher policy, and education reform. He has published widely in both academic journals and major national media outlets. Before joining the Institute, Dr. Shuls served as the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He earned his doctorate in education policy from the University of Arkansas and is a regular speaker on the future of school choice and educational innovation.

Another symptom of the public’s souring opinion on public education has been the expansion of private school choice, a policy which also endured decades of relative obscurity. Since 2022, the number of students participating in education savings account programs (known to many as ESAs) has increased from 40,205 to 488,736. This number does not include the recently passed program in Texas, which takes effect in Fall 2026, and will serve an additional 100,000 students (EdChoice); Florida has added over 700 private schools since ESA expansion in 2012. Ron Matus documents an interesting wrinkle – that 34.7% of parents who received an ESA in Florida didn’t use it because there were not enough available seats in the schools of their choice. 

The two trends have a similar trajectory and timeline - decades of very incremental progress followed by apparently explosive growth, with COVID as the tipping point. 

But the leaders of these movements have not always viewed one another as allies. Classical educators place a very strong emphasis on the “what” and school choice champions on the “how.” 

Now that the question of “how” is being settled in more places, the donor class, which has heavily invested in school choice, must begin to wrestle with the need to increase the supply of private and charter school “seats,” and in so doing, begin to prioritize the question of “what.” New leaders for new schools are needed, but what kind of leaders? How should they be educated? What are the virtues and skills that are necessary? 

Parents seem to be answering the “what” fairly decisively. Classical schools are thriving in states that have expanded private and public classical charter school choice, pointing towards what economists call a “revealed demand.” 

How can those who invested fortunes and time in school choice policies ensure that these policies endure through enhanced popular support? By giving the people what they want. Closing the “human capital” gap in classical school leadership should be a key strategy for school-choice friendly philanthropists and policymakers alike. This does not mean that other kinds of education should be suppressed or discouraged. It simply means: a) school choice advocates should be embracing, encouraging, and resourcing classical educators in their aspirations to expand the number of families that they serve; and b) that classical educators should “meet the moment” by intentionally developing a new generation of school leaders who know both the “what” and the “how.” 

But the flip side of this is that classical educators should be giving more thought to the “how.” Existing institutions that train classical educators should dedicate more time and resources to developing leaders that are entrepreneurial, policy-savvy, and equipped with executive skills. 

The solution to meeting parent demand for classical education is for educators and choice advocates to collaborate more intentionally. The following are just a few examples of what that could look like, and in many cases, partnerships are already emerging. 

• Higher education has an important role to play. In states that are launching “civic leadership” or similar programs, policymakers can follow the lead of Florida by creating certification pathways and programs that are specifically designed for classical educators. Another example is the K12 Fellowship at the University of Austin, which will give students the opportunity to serve as aides in a variety of local schools, including classical private, charter, and microschools.

• Schools and school networks can employ a wider range of strategies to attract teacher talent. AEI’s recent report, The Achilles’ Heel of Classical Education, suggests a range of solutions, including expansion of teacher fellowship programs, recruitment of “refugee teachers,” and cultivating a larger network of higher education partners.

• Philanthropists should be looking at the model of the Charter School Growth Fund, and consider strategies to fund “shovel ready” expansion efforts at existing and emerging schools that are held back by facilities constraints. The major constraint on choice policies and classical charter expansion will be the supply of seats, and concentrated philanthropic and other capital funding models are urgently needed.

• Charter school advocates should be aware of and ready to leverage new opportunities to meet demand, whether by advancing policies which allow for more rapid expansion of campuses or by opening new private campuses.

• Private institutions with existing classical education programs should include more business and policy-focused courses to equip future leaders with the know-how to engage with policy and build strong and enduring institutions. 

• Churches should be leaning into creating new supply. Society for Classical Learning’s President, Eric Cook, has been a vocal supporter of this approach. 

• Since accreditation remains an issue for school expansion in states (like Texas) that have this condition in their ESA legislation, the next frontier in school choice should be increasing the number of accreditors that are friendly to classical educators, AND that have capacity to give start-up schools (especially microschools) the runway they need to financial viability. Both SCL and the Stand Together Trust (in partnership with Middle States Association) are creating more streamlined accreditation processes, but new accreditors are needed that can meet the needs of new and emerging classical schools. 

• And finally, to cultivate more ideas and solutions, leaders in each space should attend one another’s gatherings - the relational element cannot be underestimated. A few interesting opportunities that span worlds are the following (this is far from complete - there are many others):

  • Great Hearts Institute has been a leader in bringing together leaders in both worlds, and their annual summit is a model of the power of this approach. Their annual “big tent” National Symposium will be held in Tempe, Arizona February 25-27, 2026.

  • Heritage Foundation has been a national leader in think tank land with the development of research and resources for classical education.

  • This year, the International School Choice and Reform Conference will be held in Rome. Policy-curious classical educators should consider attending and getting to know the researchers and influencers who are making the “how” happen. The Eternal City is a perfect backdrop to inspire reflection on human flourishing and the necessary conditions for it. 

  • Society for Classical Learning has held panel discussions on policy issues at its conferences (next year’s is June 16-18, 2026), and continues to be a leader in terms of both influence and practical solutions for growth-minded classical educators. 

To the extent that classical education is coded as a reaction to modernity, it should build within its next generation of leaders gratitude for the classically liberal framework of school choice that is enabling more parents to access an education in the good, true, and beautiful. And choice advocates should cultivate gratitude for the tradition which gave rise to classical liberal ideas in the first place. 

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Building relationships and solutions together will help make school choice a more politically durable victory, even as we look ahead to the coming battles over AI and the cultural challenges and opportunities that will emerge. Classical leaders that have a growth-oriented mindset and school choice advocates who respect the small-c conservative values of classical education will ensure that parents are choices worth choosing.