It’s the First Day of School. Institutions Are Failing Our Kids.

Parents of young children are masters at winging it. Scary movie? Apply some magical thinking and it qualifies as a comedy. Laundry to fold? Transform the chore into a game show. Healthy dinner? Add broccoli to boxed mac and cheese.

But few of us have had to wing it on such a huge scale. On a Sunday evening in mid-March, New York City public school families learned that school was to shut down beginning the next day, Monday, March 16. Like so many, my children went to school on a Friday and at the end of the day gathered a few belongings, bid goodbye to the teachers they loved and never set foot in their classrooms again.