The School Board Wars, Part 2

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2021

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode contains strong language. In Bucks County, Pa., what started out as a group of frustrated parents pushing for schools to reopen devolved over the course of a year and half into partisan disputes about America’s most divisive cultural issues. But those arguments have caused many to overlook a central role of the Central Bucks School District’s board: providing quality education. In Part 2 of our series on school board wars in the U.S., we look beyond the fighting and examine the pandemic’s harsh effects on teachers and pupils. Guest: Campbell Robertson, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily. In Bucks County,
0:07.0	Pennsylvania, we would like school reopened on time with as few safety measures
0:11.8	as possible. What started as a group of frustrated parents organizing to push the
0:17.0	district to reopen schools, devolved over the course of a year and a half into
0:22.2	partisan fighting over the country's most divisive cultural issues. The
0:26.5	treatment of our children during this pandemic has been in eye opening to do
0:31.0	deception and lies perpetrated by the people in this room. Yesterday on the
0:35.3	Daily, COVID has broken you people and it's disgusting. My colleague Campbell
0:40.6	Robertson traced the history of that battle in Bucks County. I watch how you
0:45.1	treat each other in here. It's disgusting. Cominating with the resignation of the
0:50.0	school board's only swing vote. Common decency. You'll need to find a real
0:56.1	fast. Today in part two as the school board elections near what is actually
1:02.9	happening inside the schools in Bucks and where is all of this headed.
1:13.2	It's Wednesday November 17th.
1:19.9	Okay, Campbell. Welcome back. Good to be back. When we left off last, John
1:25.7	Gable, the school board's most moderate figure had just resigned at a
1:30.2	frustration with how ugly things had gotten in Bucks County and he used this
1:34.5	metaphor with you to describe what the school board and parents were focused on
1:40.1	when it came to problems facing the district. He said it's like arguing over
1:45.7	putting new tires on a car, but forgetting to put any gas in it. And what he
1:50.7	seemed to mean was you all are fighting about all this stuff, but you're
1:56.6	ignoring the essentials. Yeah, and it's I don't know if you want to say funny.
	...

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