Any critical theory of education, which critical pedagogy claims to be, is intimately caught up in questions of value, critique, and the possibility of constructing more engaged and democratic forms of learning. The struggle for a democratic education is, however, more than the expression of antagonism but is also deeply concerned with human experience and its potential for transformation. Democratic education cannot be reduced to a learned technique but is more of an art that is less concerned with the transmission of knowledge than it is with authentic learning. Any critical form of pedagogy needs to carefully consider relations of freedom, authority, and responsibility in ways that are likely to facilitate the process of learning. The author cites Giroux's (2006a) argument that a democratic education would seek to develop a process of learning that assisted public forms of participation but also enabled students to produce new forms of democratic knowledge. In this article, the author investigates the writing of both Paulo Freire and Jurgen Habermas to look at how they sought to defend the ideas of a democratic education that is emancipatory while also critical of the prevailing neoliberal climate within education. The author aims to demonstrate that the inspirational writing of Paulo Freire was itself involved in a long process of internal critique and reflection and that his analysis continues to have a great deal to offer critical educators.