Children are required to receive an education. If parents don’t want to home school (to a govt set standard) and can’t afford private school, society will pay for your children to receive a basic education. Society will fund this basic education until 16.
As families’ abilities to support their lifestyles (not suggesting any level of extravagance, literally mean a style of living: home ownership ideally, some form of private transport ideally, one or more children ideally, a certain level of consumption ideally, a certain amount and time of leisure time ideally) on a single salary decreased, the “problem” of what to do with children increased. Couple this with a long overdue push for equality for women without a counter-balancing responsibility on men to fulfil their duties, and conditions are ripe for financial and social disaster.
Over the years schools and teachers have taken on increasing roles for things that used to be covered by the nuclear family, extended family, local communities, local government and state agencies.
With just one extraneous happening - a pandemic, not even a natural disaster or a war - a system pushed to its limits cracks. Responsibilities fall back onto families.
Which, in my opinion, is where responsibility for children belongs.