In many cities and towns across the southern United States, today is the first day of school. Under ordinary circumstances, it’s a day of excitement and anticipation in which the enduring mythologies of ritual and community rekindle our appetite for invention, discovery, and growth. As a teacher, as a parent, and, a long time ago, as a student, I have over the course of my life learned to look forward to the first day of school as others look forward to Christmas or the Fourth of July.

But as any Kossack can tell you, these are times not given to ordinary circumstances. And today, with regard to the mission and scope of public education, nowhere is this more true than here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Join me on the flip, and I'll tell you why.