The Phoenix Declaration

The Phoenix Declaration was unveiled by the Heritage Foundation in collaboration with leading education scholars, policy experts and public officials on February 17, 2025.

More than 50 scholars and education policy experts and 10 educational and public interest groups, including the 1776 Project Foundation, signed on to the Phoenix Declaration envisioning an education system dedicated to the following:

Parental Choice & Responsibility: Parents are the primary educators of their children. Public education funds should always follow the child. 

• Transparency & Accountability: Schools must be fully transparent with parents about curricula, policies, and student well-being. 
• Truth & Goodness: Students deserve an education grounded in objective truth, free from ideological fads, and oriented toward the pursuit of the good.
• Cultural Transmission: Students should learn about America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions. Students should study the best-competing viewpoints that comprise our intellectual heritage. 
• Character Formation: Schools must prepare children for the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood by cultivating virtue, personal responsibility, and self-discipline. 
• Academic Excellence: Schools should prioritize proven teaching methods and a content rich curriculum rooted in foundational subjects over fads or experimental teaching methods.  
• Citizenship: Schools should teach students the civic virtues and knowledge necessary for self-government, including the value of civil disagreement. Students should learn the whole truth about America—its merits and failings—without obscuring that America is a great source of good in the world. 

Read the full Declaration on the Heritage Foundation’s website.