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Mayor-Elect Eric Adams Will Name David Banks As Schools Chancellor
By
Jessica Gould
Published Dec 8, 2021
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By
Jessica Gould
Published Dec 8, 2021
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Mayor-elect Eric Adams will announce that he has chosen longtime education leader David C. Banks to become chancellor of New York City's public schools, according to sources with knowledge of the decision. Banks will helm the nation’s largest school system as it reels from the health, academic and emotional impacts of the pandemic. He will also be tasked with addressing the system’s deep segregation and boosting student achievement in a city where scores remain below the national average.
Adams is expected to make the formal announcement on Thursday morning.
Banks was long seen as a leading contender for the job; he has been meeting with education leaders and advocacy groups for weeks. He was the co-chair of Adams’ educational transition team. His partner, Sheena Wright, the leader of the United Way of New York City, is heading Adams’ overall transition team and his brother, Philip Banks, a former NYPD chief of department, has also been advising Adams.
Banks launched the Eagle Academy for Young Men, which includes a network of public schools that mostly serve boys of color in 2004. The mission of the schools is to improve academic outcomes for male students, drawing from geographic areas where many often end up in the criminal justice system. The schools are not charter schools and employ unionized teachers, with campuses in the central Bronx, Harlem, South Jamaica, Ocean Hill/Brownsville, Staten Island and Newark, New Jersey. Prior to Eagle Academy, Banks was part of a team of educators who created the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, a team that also included outgoing Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter.
In his book SOAR: How Boys Learn, Succeed, and Develop Character, Banks said he was motivated to pursue a career in education after watching his brother struggle academically while he himself excelled. He said his brother, who was young for his grade and very energetic, seemed to be pigeonholed as a low-performer — an experience Banks argues is all too common for Black boys.
Banks wrote in his book that the Eagle Academy schools try to create a close-knit community and insulate kids from the dangers in the surrounding neighborhoods. The days are long, stretching from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. because Banks said he wanted kids to commute with workers rather than other students. Each school has "houses,” similar to fraternities, where groups of kids eat together, play sports together, and compete academically to earn points. There's an emphasis on brotherhood and mentorship; students are even encouraged to call each other “bro.” They wear uniforms with ties and are taught to offer a firm handshake and use an iron.
Tyron Simmons, a junior at the Eagle Academy in Queens, said the school feels like a family. “It’s not like your relationship with teachers ends at the end of the day when you’re dismissed,” he said. “You have someone to talk to, you have a village that’s raising you, that’s helping you grow.”
Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director at the nonprofit Alliance For Quality Education, sent her son to the Eagle Academy in Brooklyn. She said was impressed by the strong level of parental involvement and high proportion of teachers of color at the school. “It was amazing,” Ansari said.
In an interview ahead of the formal announcement, Ansari said she was “optimistic and hopeful” about Banks serving as chancellor.“Any chancellor entering with a successful practice and vision for Black and brown boys ... I think we’re already at an advantage,” she said.
Eagle Academies’ graduation rate for boys of color is 89%, according to the foundation that supports the schools, compared to a national average of 59%. But, as reported by the education news site Chalkbeat New York, several of the Eagle academies were also included on a state list of lowest performing schools a few years ago.
As chancellor, Banks will be tasked with keeping schools safe, particularly through this winter as COVID-19 case numbers are poised to rise. He will have to weigh in on the system’s persistent segregation, including whether to follow through with the de Blasio Administration’s promise to overhaul Gifted and Talented programs and alter admissions policies at middle and high schools. He also takes over at a time of both declining enrollment and unprecedented investment, with an infusion of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money and increased funding from the state.
In an op-ed in The Daily News in May, Banks said the city should use the funds to “reimagine our school system” through more relevant curricula and an emphasis on real-world issues like climate change and voting rights. He recommended de-emphasizing standardized testing.
“He really cares about children,” said United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew. Mulgrew said he is still waiting to better understand the Adams’ administration’s vision for the school system, including the role he envisions for charter schools, but is optimistic that the new leadership will “downsize” the education department’s bureaucracy in order to shift resources to schools.
David E. Kirkland, executive director of the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and The Transformation of Schools, called Banks inspiring but pragmatic. “Banks is a charismatic leader who listens to the community and is able to enlist support across a broad range of constituencies,” he said.
Still, Kirkland has concerns about some of Mayor-elect Adams’ education policies, particularly when it comes to selective admissions to public schools. Adams has said he would increase the number of specialized schools, rather than eliminate the controversial standardized entrance exam (SHSAT), and has said he will maintain the city’s gifted and talented programs — although he opposes testing four-year-olds to determine who gets in.
Adams, who is seen as a supporter of a strong school security presence, has said he favors keeping the officers under NYPD oversight rather than transferring them to the Department of Education, despite a pledge from the de Blasio administration to shift them over.
The Adams’ transition team on education includes many members of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration as well as some former members of the de Blasio Administration, charter school leaders, and chiefs of some of the city’s major advocacy groups for children.
Banks will replace Porter, a longtime education department administrator and superintendent, who was appointed last spring and oversaw the full reopening of the school system this past fall. Porter announced earlier this month that she would be taking on a new role leading the nonprofit Bronx Community Foundation.
Tagged
education
public schools
eric adams
David Banks
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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