Here’s a sign of a collapsing state: across the country, public school districts are charging parents money for “childcare” in school buildings. (Otherwise known as “school.”)

Many schools are closed because of the ongoing pandemic. This has left many working parents needing childcare. During the peak of the pandemic, New York City offered free childcare to children of essential workers, and later, to anyone who needed it. The program was a success — largely safe and widely appreciated by the families that used it. But this business of charging parents for childcare in public buildings when school is supposed to be in session is manifestly unjust and underscores how badly at risk our public institutions are in this intertwined crisis of recession and pandemic. We are going to have to fight hard to restore public trust in them, and to get them back.

Durham, North Carolina announced in August that it would be charging $70 to $140 per week (homeless and foster families will not be charged, no doubt cold comfort to the majority) for its “learning centers,” coincidentally located in school buildings and providing “supervision” to kids during the day. (Otherwise known as “schools” providing “school.”) Fairfax County, Virginia provides “a supportive setting to promote children’s academic, social, emotional and physical development” (e.g., “school”), for fees on a sliding scale, with monthly fees ranging from $80 to $1,472. The Fairfax program, extra-obnoxiously, is called Supporting Return to School (SRS). Other districts that have done this include Howard County, Maryland (a partly federally funded program charging $185 for the school day); Gilbert, Arizona; and others.