I know I’m not the only parent thinking about pausing my career indefinitely because our schools are such a disaster. What will it mean for the productivity of an already-hurting city if a large number of people need to stop working to educate their kids?

Countries around the world led with school reopenings, and the rest of their economies followed. Even when they ponder new lockdowns, other countries exclude schools. The virus, after all, poses a minuscule risk to children, who also transmit it at a much lower rate than do adults.

In September, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “schools should be the very last bit of society that we want to close down again.”

Not us. Our hapless leaders close schools first and figure out why later. Kids are adrift. Parents are faced with unthinkable choices. It’s breaking us.