Incoming schools chancellor David Banks called for a “re-imagining” of the troubled system he’s about to inherit Saturday as he continued to blast the DOE’s bloat.
“I believe fundamentally that the way we are educating our children is wrong,” the longtime educator told a responsive crowd at Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in Harlem.
“We have not given them a reason for even going to school in the first place,” Banks said. “We want to make sure their education is dedicated to their economic upward mobility.”
“I am not here to play around on the margins,” he vowed.
The fiery rhetoric expanded on the speech Banks delivered two weeks ago, when he attacked the DOE’s bloated $38 billion budget as soon as mayor-elect Eric Adams named him to the job — calling it a “betrayal” of the students it exists to serve.
“We spend $38 billion — that’s billions with a B, you all,” he said Saturday.
“Think about that. $38 billion every year, and yet 65 percent of black and brown children never achieve proficiency in the system. It’s a betrayal.”
“They do a lot of schooling but not a lot of educating,” he added.
Banks is best known as a founder of Eagle Academy, a string of public 6-12 schools that cater to African American boys — and regularly notch 90-percent-plus graduation rates.
“We intend to do that for all the young people around the city,” Banks promised The Post after Saturday’s event, citing Eagle Academy’s mentoring efforts and career and college exposure programs.