Our Story

The National Paideia Center (NPC) is one of the oldest, continually active school reform organizations in the country. Founded in 1988 at the University of North Carolina by then-President William Friday and philosopher Mortimer Adler, it was created to provide equity in education through intellectual and creative rigor for all students. Our program is based on the Paideia Principles, proposed by Adler and the original Paideia Group, and also on the Three Columns of Paideia Instruction, first defined in a book published by the group, The Paideia Proposal.

Today, the NPC headquarters is in Asheville, North Carolina, but we work with schools all over the United States and in several foreign countries. Our current focus is serving the needs of schools and school systems as well as individual teachers, featuring a contemporary approach to implementation of the Paideia Seminar and the Paideia Project. The NPC’s newly refined school certification and accreditation program is designed to foster a generation of creative students who will be fully prepared for life in the unpredictable world of 2050.