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Events • May 15, 2017 

# Teaching Kids Controversy: Education, Pluralism, and Hot Topics 

Public schools were created with a mission to bring diverse people together and inculcate shared values thought necessary for democracy. But teaching children about politically, religiously, racially, or otherwise highly charged topics has turned out to be very difficult, driven by fear of igniting explosive conflicts. The result has been that potential flashpoints—but also crucial topics—have often been soft-pedaled or skipped entirely in schools. Which raises a fundamental question: Can a public education system encompassing very diverse people ever teach all children about highly controversial topics? Join a panel of experts as they tackle a critical question that is, itself, highly contentious.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

![Jonathan Zimmerman](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2022-11/Zimmerman-cropped.jpg?itok=ro7wZPL-) 

##### Jonathan Zimmerman 

Professor of History of Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania

![Ashley Berner cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2022-03/ashley-berner-cropped.jpg?itok=t30n9wd1) 

##### Ashley Rogers Berner 

Director, Institute for Education Policy, Johns Hopkins University

[ 

](https://twitter.com/BernerEd) 

##### Elizabeth Anderson Worden 

[![Neal McCluskey Cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-11/mccluskey-cropped.jpg?itok=I-QI0yJD)](/people/neal-mccluskey) 

##### [Neal McCluskey](/people/neal-mccluskey)

Former Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute

##### Valerie Strauss