The Stilt Engineer: my argument against private school vouchers [View all]

[Bucky]

I know vouchers are popular with white middle-class people. But the idea comes from a misapprehension of what public education is for.

Let me offer this analogy. Imagine we all lived on a floodplain and it was necessary for the community to build a canal and some overflow reservoirs to protect our homes from annual flooding. It costs a lot of money to hire those workers and machinery, so we levy a tax to pay for it.

Then one person comes along and says, "I know how to build my house up on stilts so that the flooding won't hurt my family home"

That's a great solution for that one family. But then that person says, "So I want a voucher to reduce the amount of taxes I pay for building the canal and flood reservoirs."

Well that's not fair at all. This stilt engineer is imagining he can void the social contract because the next flood won't directly endanger him. The stilt engineer is ignoring the social costs of having an inadequately funded flooding reservoir system.

See, if the reservoir isn't fully paid for, then there'll still be flooded homes, or the social costs of flooded farms and businesses and road systems. Or, if somehow the reservoir is fully built, this stilt engineer is going to enjoy the benefits of living in a community that doesn't have flooded farms, flooded roads, and flooded neighbors. And if he does enjoy the benefits of living in that society, as a citizen he has an obligation (social contract) to pay his fair share for the engineering projects that make his life better.

Besides, if his stilt project fails, he'll still have the reservoir system around to protect his home.