How Central Park Could Fix Public Education
“[T]hat which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.” - Aristotle
The economics concept of “the tragedy of the commons” sounds both dramatic and complex, but it’s actually quite familiar, particularly to anyone who has rented a car.
Also known as “the open-access problem,” the theory gained notoriety when the ecologist Garrett Hardin used it in a 1968 Science article. “Picture,” he wrote, “a pasture open to all.” Each herdsman gains by “keep[ing] as many cattle as possible on the commons,” because he reaps the full profit from additional milk production yet spreads the cost of overgrazing out over the entire community. All know their shared resource would be maximized if they restrained themselves, yet each is personally incentivized to exploit.
That’s what happens with “it’s just a rental.” Everyone wins if we all take good care of the Hyundai Sonata, but the math comes out differently when I can only make it to my important meeting by eating soup while hopping a curb.
Like other public goods, education is supposed to flow freely, not resemble a commons. Grinnell Smith and Colette Rabin, elementary-education professors at San Jose State University,, “[Americans] recognize that higher levels of education track with lower incidences of crime, lower healthcare costs, higher employment rates and many other factors likely to improve conditions for everyone … so collectively, we agree to pay for public schools.” But in practice, funding (and teacher) shortages create a limited resource that’s then depleted by school-choice programs and segregation.
