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Page 118
would in this special area, as the market does in general, permit co-operation without conformity.2
The state of Virginia has adopted a plan having many features in common with that outlined in the preceding chapter. Though adopted for the purpose of avoiding compulsory integration, I predict that the ultimate effects of the law will be very differentafter all, the difference between result and intention is one of the primary justifications of a free society; it is desirable to let men follow the bent of their own interests because there is no way of predicting where they will come out. Indeed, even in the early stages there have been surprises. I have been told that one of the first requests for a voucher to finance a change of school was by a parent transferring a child from a segregated to an integrated school. The transfer was requested not for this purpose but simply because the integrated school happened to be the better school educationally. Looking further ahead, if the voucher system is not abolished, Virginia will provide an experiment to test the conclusions of the preceding chapter. If those conclusions are right, we should see a flowering of the schools available in Virginia, with an increase in their diversity, a substantial if not spectacular rise in the quality of the leading schools, and a later rise in the quality of the rest under the impetus of the leaders.
On the other side of the picture, we should not be so naïve as to suppose that deep-seated values and beliefs can be uprooted in short measure by law. I live in Chicago. Chicago has no law compelling segregation. Its laws require integration. Yet in fact the public schools of Chicago are probably as thoroughly segregated as the schools of most Southern cities. There is almost no doubt at all that if the Virginia system were introduced in Chicago, the result would be an appreciable decrease in segregation, and a great widening in the opportunities available to the ablest and most ambitious Negro youth.
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2 To avoid misunderstanding, it should be noted explicitly that in speaking of the proposal in the preceding chapter, I am taking it for granted that the minimum requirements imposed on schools in order that vouchers be usable do not include whether the school is segregated or not.

 
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