Beyond College and Career Readiness: Education's Broader Purposes

This essay argues that emphasizing "college and career-readiness" as the major goal of public education is too narrow a purpose for education. College and career readiness, if pursued exclusively, may deprive students of the problem-solving skills they need to live well-adjusted, flourishing lives. The purposes of education that were identified by diverse thinkers from the past may offer a better goal for education: aiming to produce good people. An argument is made that this goal can be pursued by utilizing a liberal arts curriculum featuring core texts. Examples from secondary literature on the value of such an approach are provided.