Monday was the first day of class in New York City public schools. When the school doors opened Monday morning, a new era opened, too—and that’s good news for the city’s 1.1 million students, and for the future of New York.

This will be the first full school year under the new school management structure. The old system had some remarkable successes—but it failed too many of our children for too long. And because it was an organization that lacked accountability, failure went unchecked. Not any more. The old system of diffused and confused responsibility has been replaced with a simple and direct chain of accountability that, for the first time, runs from the teacher’s desk in the classroom right to the mayor’s desk at City Hall. And that’s the way it ought to be.

By streamlining the management structure we’ve been able to redirect millions of dollars away from needless bureaucracy, and to instead use those funds to support teaching and learning in the classroom. Beginning this week, classroom instruction will be built around a strong new citywide curriculum that will help all of our students master reading, writing and math. The schools will have experienced reading and math coaches, as well as experts in English language learning and special education. All of them will focus on helping classroom teachers do their best work. Parents won’t be shut out of the schools anymore. Every school will have a parent coordinator whose job will be to involve parents in their children’s education. Parent support offices also have been established throughout the city, and will be open six days a week and for extended hours on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Call the Citizen Service Hotline at 3-1-1 to find the one nearest you.

We’ve made the schools safer, because learning can only go on in an orderly atmosphere. There’s a new disciplinary code. We’ve made it clear that every student is responsible for following the rules. And alternative programs have been established to remove students who are repeatedly disruptive from the classrooms so they can’t impair the learning environment for others. School governance reform is also letting our Administration reduce overcrowding by enabling us to build and renovate schools more quickly and less expensively while also improving the quality of construction. When schools opened on Monday, we added 20,000 classroom seats to the school system—the largest one-year increase in 14 years.

And for more tangible evidence of the benefit of reforms, consider this: In the past, it wasn’t unusual for students to arrive for the first day of school and find that there were no textbooks waiting for them. Not this year. Last Thursday, I visited PS 49 in Middle Village, Queens. The classrooms were well-stocked with the books the students there will need. And that story has been repeated across the city. More than eight million books and other learning materials have been delivered and unpacked at all 1,200 public schools. That’s a result of creating a school system that puts children first, and that will provide them with the instruction, supplies and safety they need in order to learn. Now, let the school year begin!