In 2007, when executive T.J. Rodgers was pressed on his political leanings and asked whether he was a right- or left-leaning libertarian, he replied, “Neither. I’m a libertarian libertarian.”

Likewise are my own views—I have always been an unapologetic supporter of liberty and always opt for the path with the least governmental intervention. However, I have since moderated my views, and while I have by no means abandoned the libertarian position, I do find radical libertarianism inadequate. The largest problem with the position stems from childhood—the libertarian position cannot account for fairness in educational systems.

Regardless of political leanings, most would argue that education, as it stands in America, needs reform. Several urban and underfunded programs, such as the Chicago public school system, are notorious for high dropout, crime, and violence rates. On the other hand, we also have a number of upper-class private high schools with high elite-college acceptance rates and even higher tuitions. Though there is definitely room in top colleges for those with more humble roots, it’s undeniable that attending one of these high schools (and paying the requisite tuition) puts the student at a significant advantage over public schooling. The result is that money essentially buys a good education and all but ensures a distinct economic advantage over those equally intelligent and capable but lacking the money to pay for a private high school.

The libertarian approach to solving this unfairness is to liberalize the marketplace and allow for competition. This confers the benefits of higher competition, lower costs of attending school overall and a better quality of education overall. However, while this does solve the problem of underfunded public schools performing poorly, it still does not solve the pervading inequalities—students coming from rich families will still have the benefits of being able to afford and attend a high school that gives them significant advantage over those less fortunate.

Despite my libertarian streak, I find that the only feasible option to correct this inequality would be either to place a restriction of attending public schools only or to implement a voucher system in which tuition would be limited to the cost of the voucher alone. Restricting schooling options to only public schools is suboptimal because it would not account for geographic disparities—someone living in the ghetto will still have to attend school in the ghetto, and richer families will still have a benefit, if a more subtle one. A voucher system would only work if parents could not pay for tuition beyond the voucher itself. Otherwise, we would be back at square one—rich parents would send their children to schools whose tuition is much higher than the cost of a publicly-issued voucher.

Ultimately, the challenge posed to the educational system in America is to focus on achieving fairness rather than maximizing one social group at the expense of another. Programs like No Child Left Behind do not work because they do not shift the climate of education towards a meritocracy—in an environment where only the student’s intelligence and competence matter, we can allow for a system that enables the brightest kids to succeed regardless of other hindrances. After all, we would all lose something if Einstein weren’t given all the help he needed as a student to succeed and change the world.