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Schools Chancellor David Banks gave a searing critique of the Department of Education in an address Wednesday — and vowed to jolt the nation’s largest school system out of a $38 billion malaise.
Speaking at DOE headquarters in downtown Manhattan, Banks acknowledged some dire realities facing the agency — including dropping enrollment, dismal proficiency rates for black and brown students, and a “broken trust” with disillusioned city parents.
Forced to improvise his speech after a teleprompter malfunction, Banks said the DOE has delivered “completely dysfunctional” results despite the billions that roar through its coffers each year.
Banks bluntly characterized shrinking school registers as an “indictment” of the DOE’s recent history.
“You wrap your mind around that for a moment,” he said. “That happened before the pandemic and it was accelerated throughout this pandemic. A hundred twenty thousand families decided to vote with their feet and to say, ‘We are going to find other alternatives and other choices’ for their children. That is an indictment of the work that we have done.”
Banks, a New York native and a product of its public schools, repeatedly highlighted the gulf between DOE’s spending and the quality of its product.
“But think about it, $38 billion,” he said. “I want you to keep that number in your head. We spent $38 billion every single year to get the outcomes we get. Where 65 percent of black and brown children never achieve proficiency.”
Repeating many of the same themes he introduced after his selection as schools chief, Banks laid out policies that he said would reverse DOE decay and restore parental belief.
He announced the elimination of DOE executive superintendents, a bureaucratic layer introduced by former schools chief Richard Carranza.
“We have not gotten the level of value added to our schools that is needed for having that position,” Banks said, arguing that they impeded the work of the DOE’s 32 district superintendents.
Instead, Banks promised to “bolster” superintendents with additional funding and personnel.
Banks said he would strip away red tape that often frustrates innovative city principals and that effective programs should be scaled throughout the system.
“If you never hear about it,” Banks said of strong DOE offerings, “we think it doesn’t exist. “That’s why so many of our parents and our families have left. Because we have broken the trust of our families. And we have to build our trust back.”
Banks notably ignored what had become taboo during the de Blasio administration — offering a positive opinion regarding charter schools.
“The charter schools have done an amazing job of telling their story,” Banks said. “That’s why people are leaving the traditional public schools and going to private schools or going to charter schools.”
Coaxing some of those kids back, Banks said, would require an overhaul of the DOE’s marketing efforts to extol its successful programs.
The schools chief stressed the need to make learning more relevant to kids by tying classwork to future job prospects.
Emphasizing “career pathways,” Banks said kids will “understand what it means to take their place in the American workforce.”
Too many students are “going through the routine of going to school” rather than connecting their work to tangible future rewards, Banks said.
Curricular expansion will also include a buildout of virtual learning options that will offer specialized and accelerated learning to a much larger pool of city kids.
Updating the DOE’s approach will require new training for city teachers, the chancellor asserted.
“Far too many of our teachers are smart, committed, hardworking — but they have not received the level of exposure to what the world of work really looks like,” he said.
Citing the crucial role of early literacy in learning, the DOE will also create a new task force dedicated to having every child able to read by the third grade.
Noting ongoing concerns about school safety and a shortage in security agents in city buildings, Banks said he hoped to add about 1,000 officers in the coming months.
In his concluding remarks, Banks pledged to remake the DOE’s mission and pump new life into the agency.
He said he was heartened by a marked rise in attendance in city schools after he entered office amidst the omicron surge — and that he expects positive trends to continue.
“People are feeling a new spirit,” he said. “That spirit is real. We are going to transform this system. I didn’t come here to play at being chancellor. I came here to make a real difference.”
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