NYCDOE Chancellor David C. Banks comes back home to outline his plan

Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 5 - Issue 2 - June 2022

New York City Department of Education Chancellor David C. Banks spoke in the Great Hall of Shepard Hall on Thursday, April 28, 2022. His talk was titled “My Vision for New York City Public Education.” Chancellor Banks is a School of Education alumnus.

When he graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Chancellor Banks said, “I had never taken a teaching course in my life prior to becoming a teacher.” After college, he worked as a school safety officer, a teacher, and a lawyer before becoming an assistant principal. He attended The City College for part of the coursework needed for School Building Leader certification, and he completed the School District Leader advanced certificate program in 2020.

Referring to his work with Mayor Adams, Chancellor Banks outlined the four pillars that represent the underpinnings of their vision to improve public education in New York City. The first pillar is to change the way literacy is taught. Chancellor Banks wants to make a major investment in reading and use a curriculum based on phonetics to teach children to read. “Providing a strong literacy background and foundation is critically important,” he said. This includes re-imagining the way children are assessed through standardized testing and how standardized testing is used in schools and impacts not only students, but teachers as well. The second pillar involves scaling, sustaining, and restoring what works. Chancellor Banks envisions creating a mechanism for schools to learn from one another to scale, sustain, and restore best practices. “Every school across New York City has at least one thing that they can teach another school how to do,” he said. The third pillar is prioritizing wellness. This includes teaching students about healthy eating habits, meditation, mindfulness, and the great outdoors.  Finally, the fourth pillar in Chancellor Banks’s vision for public education is engaging parents and families. He believes in not only listening to parents and families, but also taking their needs into consideration and listening to what their needs are.

To begin restructuring the New York City Department of Education, one of the first things that Chancellor Banks did when he got into office was eliminate the executive superintendent position. He said that, as a result, superintendents are going to have more authority and more funds to carry out the four pillars of his administration. “I am putting all the bodies back into districts and working for superintendents,” he added. “We are going to get superintendents who are going to have more authority; they are going to have greater budget; they are going to have more bodies that they can deploy to the schools; they are going to have what they need to be supportive to the schools that are there for them.”

Chancellor Banks brings new ideas and perspectives to the largest school district in the nation. We congratulate him for his accomplishments and look forward to the positive impact that his work will have in the lives of children and youth in New York City.