Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - BONUS: O'Reilly on New York's Effort to Ban Cellphone Use in Schools

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

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Kathy Hockel has done a good thing, right? Governor Hockel. And I'm not on board with her libertarian, not libertarian so much, but she's not a far left fanatic like the New York City Council, but she appeases them. And I don't like that at all. Cuomo did that too. So she wanted to get cell phones out of public schools in New York. 700 school districts in this state, huge state, okay?

And kindergarten through 12, every urchin has a cell phone because that's how kids communicate now. They text all day long, they go to these stupid websites, they go to TikTok, they watch videos, it is taking over the kid world. So when I was a kid in Levittown, we went out, we played sports, we ran around, the girls jumped roped, played Ringalevio, played stickball, played baseball, football, basketball, everything. Out, out, out, never in side. And now kids don't do that. They're on the phone every second. They carry this over to the schools. So they're distracted by the phone.

So Hogle goes, okay, we don't have good test scores in New York for public. school kids were behind almost everyone so no more no more cell phones in the classroom from bell to bell and this goes from kindergarten to senior in high school now of course if you are a sane smart person you support this okay because i'm a former teacher hard enough to get the attention of the urchins without them having something in their hand that they can play with okay and it's not needed in the classroom you put it in your locker whatever your knapsack you just don't bring it out and if you do bring it out then you lose it okay now the reason that this is successful is because most parents grandparents know

it's good for the kids all right let the kids learn as much as possible because that's good for that the phone they can do after class or whatever. But there is a segment of parents who are totally crazy in every school district. Oh, no, what if my little Tommy falls down and has to get in touch with me? Okay. Well, in that case, a teacher or one of the administrators will take Tommy to the office and we'll get in touch with you. All right, lady, calm down. Oh, my God. And, you know, usually those kids are the most spoiled kids and the kids that have a sense of entitlement, like I don't have to do anything.

It's a general statement, but as a former teacher, I know it's true. So will us improve classroom learning a bit, but it's not what they call a panacea, a cure all? The problem with educating children is that it can't only happen in the classroom. It's got to extend to the home. Now, if you live in a home, if you're a kid who lives in a home and there's not one book

in the house, not one, your parents are covered with tattoos, okay? They take drugs, they get drunk, they smoke cigarettes, they do all of this stuff. They don't care about asking you what happened at school today because they're always doing what they want to do. And even if they don't do the really harmful stuff, they're on the phone themselves. from the time they get home to the time the kid goes to sleep. Okay? And I know many parents who are.

They're addicted to the phone as their children are. They are addicted to it. They can't stop. They have to be texting. They have to be looking at video, whatever it may be. If you're a child in that environment, the odds are you are not. going to learn the way you should. In my house, my urchins, number one, had to speak proper English. No double negatives, no grammatically incorrect statements. They had to speak correctly and

distinctly. And they had to know how to make change for a dollar. And I'd give them the dollar to keep if they gave me the right change. I incentivized it. And they had to read. They had to read. Now you call me a bad dad, okay, but my son's going to graduate in two weeks. He's going to take a master's at Georgetown. My daughter just graduated St. John's Law. Okay, hello. Now, are they cell phone crazy? Yes, but they also know what they have to do. Thank you.