HOCHUL: We are keeping our schools open. Let me repeat that. We are keeping schools open. Because we’re dealing with a very different variant at this time, we believe that it’s critical important that our children not end up in the same situation they were for so many months when they were so displaced from their normal environment. We’re in a different environment, a different circumstance and so part of our winter surge plan is we are committed to keeping our schools open.

BUCK: I hope that holds. Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. That was the governor by happenstance of the state of New York, Kathy Hochul saying schools are gonna stay open but some seem like they may go remote, make the choice to, maybe some of the private schools. We’ll see.

Remember private schools and parochial schools in New York were open pretty much the entire pandemic for, starting in the fall of 2020, right? So there were places that were just open while the public school system in a lot of places as some kind of — well, it’s very obvious what it was. The teachers unions called the shots in the Democrat Party. It’s a huge source of funding and political muscle and no Democrat politician will cross the teachers unions. They do so at their peril. They know that.

So that is why they had shutdowns as widely as they did. And we have still not really come to grips with the reality of what that has done, particularly to children from disadvantaged or low-income households, disproportionately affecting children who are even more dependent on school just for stability and for their overall development.

So it was really cruel, what was done by these teachers unions. And Randi Weingarten of — I forget if she’s with the AFT or the other one. But the head of one of the big unions where what they’ve done is awful. They put neurotic, lazy adults ahead of kids; and millions of children suffered as a result of it.