David Banks vowed in his first major policy address since becoming chancellor to break up bureaucracy, improve literacy and emphasize wellness in schools.
The New York City schools chancellor vowed Wednesday to reverse what he called the betrayal of New York City’s public school students by breaking up bureaucracy, getting the city’s hundreds of thousands of low-income students on a path to the middle class and promoting healthy living in schools.
David C. Banks, the new chancellor of the nation’s largest school system, will oversee a budget of roughly $38 billion to address the system’s many challenges. Among the most pressing: City schools have lost more than 120,000 students over the past five years, a figure that Mr. Banks called “an indictment of the work that we have done.”
“It’s a betrayal,” said Mr. Banks, repeating a message he has broadcast since the day Mayor Eric Adams appointed him chancellor in December.
Mr. Banks plans to require all 32 local district superintendents to reapply for their jobs, meaning that at least some of those administrators will almost certainly be replaced. And he will eliminate the executive superintendent role created by the former chancellor, Richard A. Carranza, which some in the Department of Education see as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
“As teachers, we like what we’ve heard so far from Chancellor Banks,” Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said in a statement. “We are particularly happy to hear his emphasis on making the bureaucracy work for the schools, rather than the schools working for the bureaucracy.”
Mr. Banks is a longtime New York City educator who created a network of public all-boys schools, the Eagle Academy. The goal was to support boys of color who often struggled academically and faced harsh discipline from their teachers, many of whom were white and often didn’t know how to help, Mr. Banks has said.
It was Mr. Banks’s first opportunity to share his detailed plans for the system, after spending his first two months as chancellor on emergency footing as the Omicron variant drove a surge in virus cases and the administration had to figure out how best to safely keep schools open.
Many parents and teachers have said they would have preferred to have a remote learning option during the worst weeks of the Omicron surge. But Mr. Banks defended the decision not to offer remote education.
“It was so important to this city that we kept our doors open, because returning to school was a big step toward returning to normalcy,” Mr. Banks said. “Our public schools are essential to the fabric and economy of New York City.”
Mr. Adams announced on Sunday that the mask mandate for city schools would be lifted by March 7, provided cases don’t rise significantly before them, marking a new chapter in the city’s push to keep schools open amid the pandemic. Mr. Banks said the attendance rate had risen from 65 percent at the beginning of January to 89 percent on Tuesday.
Mr. Banks also said Wednesday that he had begun working on a more permanent virtual learning model. Starting this September, he said principals and teachers would be able to work virtually with some students who prefer to learn remotely, though he said he would share details about the plan at a later date.
“There is a small percentage of students across the city — families — that have expressed great interest in doing that, and we want to make that opportunity available for them,” Mr. Banks said.
The chancellor highlighted the importance of preparing students to get middle-class jobs after graduation, which he plans to make a major focus for his first year.
“I’m talking about real jobs that put our young people on a path to economic prosperity,” Mr. Banks said. “That’s what we should be focused on, not just the day-to-day of going to school.”
Mr. Banks emphasized the need to improve literacy in schools, especially for students of color: Two-thirds of Black and Latino students are failing state English and math exams.
N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New Administration
Schools Chancellor: David Banks. The longtime New York City educator, who rose to prominence after creating a network of public all-boys schools, takes the lead at the nation’s largest public school system as it struggles to emerge from the pandemic.
One of the main goals of Mr. Adams’s predecessor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, was getting every child up to reading level by second grade, an enormous undertaking that state test scores show had some success. But the de Blasio administration did not come close to achieving the universal literacy for which it had aimed.
The chancellor also said he would do more to build bridges between schools so that principals and administrators could learn from each other. Mr. Banks, who has already expressed his support for charter schools, said one reason charters have been successful is that they share best practices.
“It’s almost like we’ve been afraid to tell the good work that we’ve been doing,” Mr. Banks said.
When his appointment was announced, Mr. Banks said that he planned to re-evaluate administrative jobs that he believed did not serve children. Many chancellors reorganize the Department of Education at the beginning of new administrations.
In addition to having superintendents reapply for their roles, Mr. Banks said he would create a system for granting autonomy to certain “innovative” principals. Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made empowering principals, rather than higher-level administrators, a cornerstone of his education agenda. One of Mr. Bloomberg’s top education advisers, Daniel Weisberg, is now Mr. Banks’s top deputy chancellor.
“We have long advocated for greater autonomy for principals, more school safety agents, and sharing best practices throughout the system, so we were pleased to hear him raise these subjects among his priorities,” Mark Cannizzaro, the president of the city’s principals’ union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, said in a statement.
In a nod to Mr. Adams’s focus on nutrition and wellness, Mr. Banks said he would support schools in offering healthy food, outdoor activities and arts programs.
“We want to ensure that all of those young people have opportunities to leave the four walls of the school and to make sure that New York City is their full-on classroom,” Mr. Banks said.
Mr. Mulgrew said “change comes slowly” to the city’s Education Department. “It’s going to take a concerted effort to meet these ambitious goals,” he said, “but we look forward to being part of the team to make this happen.”
Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting.
