Republicans tried for the kind of headline moments they've scored in similar hearings with elite college presidents. But the testimony from K-12 public school leaders offered few surprises.David Banks, chancellor of New York City Public Schools, testified at a House Education Committee hearing on antisemitism on Wednesday.
But Wednesday's testimony offered few surprises in comparison, as the K-12 school leaders held their ground in answering Republican questions.At antisemitism hearing, Columbia official tells lawmakers, 'We have a moral crisis' The hearing began with a lightning round of yes-or-no questions about the killing of Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7. Then Republican lawmakers turned their attention to David Banks, chancellor of New York City Public Schools, the largest school district in the country.
Over and over, Republican lawmakers called for accountability and for teachers and staff who are involved in or enabled antisemitic incidents in schools to be fired. At one point, in a slip of the tongue, a lawmaker asked if anyIn maybe the most heated exchange of the hearing, Republican Elise Stefanik of New York appeared to think she had caught Banks in a lie, claiming he had said that he'd fired the principal of that New York City high school.