According to Jonathan Rauch, the debate about school vouchers has been mistakenly framed in terms of how vouchers will affect schools. The real issue, Rauch says, is what vouchers mean for improving inner city neighborhoods. Rauch argues that school vouchers "are possibly the best desegregation and urban-renewal program that the United States has hardly ever tried." Upending the liberal arguments against vouchers (as only the author of Kindly Inquisitors can), Rauch concludes that

In many respects vouchers are the perfect liberal program. They help to equalize opportunity across class lines. They stand a good chance of improving the public schools. Even if they did not improve the public schools, they could help to revitalize and integrate poor neighborhoods.

The tying of schools to houses is a historical accident that has undermined the economic integrity of cities. The tying of liberal loyalties to public-school-employees' lobbies is a historical accident that has undermined the moral integrity of liberalism. Vouchers could untie both knots.