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 independent values. The article articulates a theory of educational goods by reference to six capacities that children should develop – economic productivity, autonomy, democratic competence, healthy personal relationships, treating others as equals, and personal fulfillment. It demarcates three distributive values – adequacy, equality, and benefitting the less advantaged. And it distinguishes several independent values – childhood goods, parents’ interests, respect for democratic processes, and freedom of residence and occupation.
BrennanS (2014) The goods of childhood, children’s rights, and the role of parents as advocates and interpreters. In: BaylisFMcLeodC (eds) Family-Making: Contemporary Ethical Challenges, pp. 29–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5.
CallanE (1997) Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6.
CasalP (2007) Why sufficiency is not enough. Ethics117(2): 296–326.
7.
CurrenR (1994) Justice and the threshold of educational equality. Philosophy of Education50: 239–248.
8.
EngelS (2005) Real Kids: Creating Meaning in Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9.
FrankfurtH (1987) Equality as a moral ideal. Ethics98(1): 21–43.
10.
GheausA (2015) The intrinsic goods of childhood’ and the just society. In: BagattiniAMacLeodC (eds) The Well-Being of Children in Theory and Practice, pp. 35–52. Berlin: Springer.
11.
GriffinJ (1985) Wellbeing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12.
GutmannA (1999) Democratic Education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
13.
HirschF (2005) Social Limits to Growth. London: Routledge.
14.
JencksC (1988) Whom must we treat equally for educational opportunity to be equal?Ethics98(3): 518–533.
15.
KoskiWSReichR (2007) When ‘adequate’ isn’t: The retreat from equality in educational law and policy and why it matters. Emory Law Journal56: 545.
16.
LevinHMMcEwanPJ (eds) (2002) Cost-Effectiveness and Educational Policy. Larchmont, NJ: Eye on Education.
17.
LevinsonM (2012) No Citizen Left Behind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
18.
MacedoS (2003) Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19.
MacLeodC (2010) Primary goods, capabilities and children. In: BrighouseHRobeynsI (eds) Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities, pp. 174–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SatzD (2007) Equality, adequacy, and education for citizenship. Ethics117(4): 623–648.
29.
SchoutenG (2012) Fair educational opportunity and the distribution of natural ability: Toward a prioritarian principle of educational justice. Journal of Philosophy of Education46(3): 472–491.
30.
SumnerLW (1996) Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31.
SypnowichC (2000) Egalitarianism renewed. In: BeinerRNormanW (eds) Canadian Political Philosophy at the Turn of the Century: Exemplary Essays, pp. 118–130. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
32.
TooleyJ (1995) Disestablishing the School. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
33.
WhiteJP (2011) Exploring Well-being in Schools: A Guide to Making Children’s Lives More Fulfilling. London: Taylor & Francis.
