[7] The term classical education has been used in Western cultures for several centuries, with each era modifying the definition and adding its own selection of topics.

By the end of the 18th century, in addition to the trivium and quadrivium of the Middle Ages, the definition of a classical education embraced study of literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, history, art, and languages.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the term classical education has been used to refer to a broad-based study of the liberal arts and sciences, in contrast to a practical or pre-professional program.

[9] In a May 12, 2023 opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Cornel West and Jeremy Tate (founder of the Classic Learning Test) praised the boost given to the classical-education movement by Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

[11] Emma Green, writing for The New Yorker in April 2023, reports that what governor Ron DeSantis considers to be "a model for education nationwide" is an educational philosophy developed by Hillsdale College "as part of a larger movement to restore 'classical education'—a liberal-arts curriculum designed to cultivate wisdom and teach children to pursue the ancient ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

"[12] Also in April 2023, Angel Adams Parham (sociology professor and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia) and Anika Prather (director of high-quality curriculum and instruction at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy) wrote an article in The Washington Post entitled "As Black educators, we endorse classical studies" and argued that "rooted in the fullness of this history, classical education invites us and our students to learn from this rich crossroads and to enter into a millennia-long conversation about what it means to be human, the essence of freedom, how to live well and what constitutes a good society".

[13] This movement has also been mentioned in stories by Louis Markos in Christianity Today (2019)[14] and Stanley Fish in The New York Times (2010)[15] as well as by others in the Carolina Journal.

Some public schools (primarily charters) have structured their curricula and pedagogy around the trivium and integrate the teaching of values (sometimes called "character education") into the mainstream classroom.

Primary education is divided into three stages using terms introduced by Dorothy Sayers in her essay The Lost Tools of Learning: "poll-parrot", "pert", and "poetic".

Rhetorical debate and composition are taught to somewhat older (often high-school-aged) students, who by this point in their education have the concepts and logic to criticize their own work and persuade others.

Students learn to articulate answers to important questions in their own words, to try to persuade others with these facts, and to defend ideas against rebuttal.

In modern terms, these fields might be called history, natural science, accounting and business, fine arts (at least two, one to amuse companions, and another to decorate one's domicile), military strategy and tactics, engineering, agronomy, and architecture.

That is, in a perfect classical education, the historical study is reviewed three times: first to learn the grammar (the concepts, terms and skills in the order developed), next time the logic (how these elements could be assembled), and finally the rhetoric, how to produce good, humanly useful and beautiful objects that satisfy the grammar and logic of the field.

By completing a project in each major field of human effort, the student can develop a personal preference for further education and professional training.

Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, both of the University of Chicago set forth in the 1930s to restore the "Great Books" of Western civilization to center stage in the curriculum.

Extensions to the original set are still being published, encompassing selections from both current and older works which extend the "great ideas" into the present age.

[30] Wilson's writings and the Logos School he founded have been cited as being influential in reviving the Trivium and fueling a modern educational movement, primarily among American Protestants.

[34] In addition, classical Christian education exposes students to Western civilization's history, art and culture, teaching Latin as early as the second grade and often offering several years of Greek.

In 2016, Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain authored The Liberal Arts Tradition, published by Classical Academic Press which was later revised in 2019, with a foreword by Peter Kreeft.

The lengthy, rigorous training period required to learn Greek and Latin has been abandoned by most American schools in favor of more contemporary subjects.