Educational Pluralism 101
How families, schools, and government can work together so every child gets an education that fits, and why Cardus calls this vision educational pluralism.
What Is Educational Pluralism?
You’ve likely heard of similar ideas before—maybe under the banner of “school choice” or “educational choice.” At Cardus we use a more precise term that is similar to but distinct from these ideas: educational pluralism.
In a pluralist system, government funds and regulates education, but it isn’t the only body delivering it: independent schools, charter schools, home education, and other models stand alongside public schools as legitimate expressions of the cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity that makes up our communities. These learning environments offer a deep variety of programming, including for example Montessori, nature-based, Indigenous-focused, special education, or sports-focused pedagogies, as well as faith-based schooling, whether Jewish, Sikh, Christian, or Islamic. What makes this pluralism, rather than simply a patchwork of private options, is that government funding, recognition, and regulation make these choices genuinely reachable for families, not only for those who can already afford alternatives to public education.
For a plural system to actually work for families, Cardus Education program director Joanna DeJong VanHof has identified three essential pillars:
- Availability: a real diversity of school types that reflect what families value most.
- Access: funding and policy that lets every family reach the option that fits them, not only those who can already afford it.
- Accountability: schools answerable to families, civil society, and government alike for quality and outcomes.
Get all three right, and you have an education system built for the common good—meaning that education isn’t just solely for private benefit, nor is it a function the state alone performs. Joanna’s report grounds this in what she calls the communitarian aim of education: schooling exists not only to serve individual students, but to form citizens who go on to contribute to society’s shared life in the public square.
Watch: The Three Pillars of Educational Pluralism
In two minutes, Cardus Education program director Joanna DeJong VanHof breaks down the three pillars—availability, access, and accountability—and makes the case for why education can never be truly neutral, and why our system shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Why Educational Pluralism Benefits Students, Families, and All of Society
- Where jurisdictions fund independent schooling options at levels similar to public schools, student performance—especially among underprivileged students—improves across the entire system, not just in independent schools (“The Three Pillars of Educational Pluralism”).
- Graduates of Protestant, Catholic, and nonreligious independent schools report significantly more positive high school experiences than public school graduates—including feeling better prepared for post-secondary success, career success, and strong personal relationships throughout life (2023 Cardus Education Survey).
- Catholic and nonreligious independent school graduates are more likely to earn a graduate degree, and report higher household incomes, than public school graduates (2023 Cardus Education Survey).
- Protestant school graduates and homeschooled adults post some of the highest rates of charitable giving of any sector, regardless of their income, and are more likely to volunteer than public school graduates (2023 Cardus Education Survey).
- Schools with a clear, distinctive identity and a shared ethos offer real educational advantages over one-size-fits-all delivery, according to researchers such as Charles Glenn and the international literature reviewed in Cardus’s own research (“The Three Pillars of Educational Pluralism”).
- Educational pluralism isn’t a left- or right-of-centre idea. Progressives, from 1960s civil rights activists to legal scholars like John Coons and Stephen Sugarman, have championed choice and accountability in education for decades as a matter of justice for low-income and minority families (“The Progressive Case for Educational Pluralism”).
- Pluralism is closer to the global norm than the exception: 171 of 204 countries surveyed by UNESCO include state-funded independent schools in their national education systems (“Educational Pluralism in International Context”). The Netherlands and Belgium, the historical roots of educational pluralism itself, and the United Kingdom, where independent schools operate within real, working accountability structures, all show what a mature, well-functioning plural system can look like—and what Canada can aspire to build on further (“The Three Pillars of Educational Pluralism”; “Educational Pluralism in International Context”).
The Research Behind the Vision
The Cardus Education Survey (CES) is our landmark, multi-decade research project. It compares outcomes for graduates of public, Catholic, Protestant, and nonreligious independent schools, and homeschooling, across academic, civic, spiritual, and relational measures.
Now having conducted the survey three times in Canada, four times in the US, and once in Australia, the CES is one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind.
Want to Learn More?
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More than 470,000 students, and growing, attend independent schools across Canada. “Better Together” shows how independent school associations act as accountability partners that strengthen democracy and civil society, province by province.
Since 2022, more than three hundred new independent schools have opened in Ontario.“School’s Out for the Status Quo” finds families driving this growth in search of alternatives that reflect their values, even without a dollar of government funding.
In September 2026, Cardus began publishing a new video series, “The Real Alberta Advantage: Educational Choice in Action,” spotlighting the different learning environments that help Alberta students flourish. In the first episode, you’ll get to know Thrive Elementary: a public charter school in central-west Edmonton offering a challenging K–6 STEM program for low-income families. Not everyone starts with the same chances in life—Thrive exists to help close that gap in an environment focused on academic achievement and student well-being.
Watch “Thrive Elementary: A Charter School for Edmonton’s Low-Income Families” →
In 2024, Cardus published “Exploring Alberta’s Independent School Landscape”, a panoramic view of Alberta’s 180 independent schools which together serve over 40,000 students. Alberta has a plural education model, offering what is perhaps the most diverse approach to K–12 schooling in Canada.
Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools, this video gathers students, parents, and teachers describing communities built on faith, family, and belonging, including a boarding student who found a second home far from Ukraine.
Cardus research demonstrates the history and success of educational pluralism and support for independent schools in Quebec.
Read “Le modèle québécois de pluralisme éducatif” in French →
Drawing on the 2023 Cardus Education Survey, “School-Sector Influence on Graduate Outcomes and Flourishing” shows that American graduates of Protestant, Catholic, and independent schools consistently report stronger outcomes in education, civic life, and faith than their public school peers.
Read “School-Sector Influence on Graduate Outcomes and Flourishing” →
“Educational Pluralism in International Context” examines seventeen OECD countries and finds that state-funded independent schooling, far from being a fringe policy, is the norm within established democracies around the world.
Other Resources
OIDEL and the Freedom of Education Index
OIDEL is a Geneva-based NGO with consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe, dedicated to advancing the right to education and freedom of education worldwide. Its Freedom of Education Index (FEI) now tracks educational pluralism across more than 150 countries, measuring whether families can legally establish independent schools, whether governments help fund them, and how freely students can actually access them.
The 2025 edition finds that greater educational freedom is consistently associated with stronger student outcomes, greater equity, and less social segregation—evidence that a plural system serves everyone better, not only the families who opt out of the public system.
The Guiding Principles on Educational Pluralism
The Guiding Principles on Educational Pluralism is an international, multi-year initiative bringing together experts, governments, and civil-society leaders to build a shared human-rights framework for educational pluralism—clarifying the obligations of states, the rights of parents, and the role of independent schools within national education systems.
This global conversation rests on the same three pillars—availability, access, and accountability—that guide our own research and advocacy here at home.