18 THE QUEENS COURIER • DECEMBER 16, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
A word with the new NYC schools chancellor
BY STEPHEN WITT
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Eagle Academy Founder and CEO David
Banks was recently appointed by Mayorelect
Eric Adams to become the New York
City schools chancellor in January.
Banks is a pioneering educator with
decades of experience in the New York City
school system. Born in Crown Heights, he
attended public schools and credits two
inspirational teachers for inspiring him to
become an educator. He began his career
in 1986 as a teacher at P.S. 167 in Crown
Heights. Aft er working as an assistant
principal at P.S. 191, he co-founded the
Bronx School of Law, Government, and
Justice before founding Eagle Academy, a
network of district schools that serve lowincome
Black and Latino boys in grades
six through 12. Eagle Academy schools
currently have a campus in each borough
and consistently outperform other City
schools.
Schneps Media recently had the opportunity
to interview Banks on his plans for
running the nation’s largest school system.
Th e following interview was lightly edited
for clarity and length.
Schneps Media (SM): Yesterday on
WPIX you fl oated the idea of having
more elite schools with diff erent admissions
criteria. Can you expound about that
and does this mean you are OK with the
SHSAT at the current elite schools?
David Banks (DB): What I’m doing right
now is working with Mayor-elect Adams
and his position right now is he doesn’t
want to change admissions criteria for the
current schools, and so the notion of creating
more specialized schools is something
again that the mayor-elect has talked
about. And those additional schools
would have a diff erent set of admission criteria.
Maybe instead of just accepting students
that take the test, we’ll look at other
things like community service and teacher
recommendations. It could be a number of
things. We haven’t settled on it yet. I’m just
saying that it is possible to have a diff erent
set of admissions criteria. Maybe just taking
the top students in the 3 to 5% of the
graduating class from middle school and
opening it up. I think these students have
already proven that they’re the most accelerated,
hardworking learners in our middle
schools. And so you’re looking at diff erent
approaches, but we don’t have a stated position
on it yet. I’m not even in the offi ce, but
it’s off ering just kind of a general, big picture
vision here.
SM: Mayor-elect Adams has mentioned
on the campaign trail more of a yearround
school year. Do you have any ideas
on how you would like to see the
school year change – for example
four days a week instead of fi ve
during the school year and institute
that as year-round schooling?
DB: Again, it’s still an idea that
has to be developed and we have
not developed it as of yet.
What we are saying is
that we want to be
taking full advantage
of all the time
that we possibly
can. It’s going
to be critically
important.
That means
what do you
do aft er three o’clock for the use of extended
learning time, or use Saturday, something
that we do at the Eagle Academy. A
lot of our boys come to school on Saturday,
as well. And then there is summertime. For
many of our kids that’s a dead zone where
there’s nothing going on for two months.
We want to take advantage of that. It’s really
important. Th at’s something that came
to light with what’s been happening with
COVID where so many of our kids have
really fallen even further behind.
But that does not necessarily mean
mandating that all teachers have to work
Saturdays or aft er school, or in the summer.
We will certainly look at opportunities for
teachers to get additional pay, but we also
want to engage community-based organizations.
Th ere are thousands of communitybased
organizations across the state who are
ready to lean in and we want to provide an
opportunity for them to provide additional
support aft er school. So you know, a young
person may go for basic core work with the
regular teachers during the school day but
aft er school, maybe they’re working with
the Children’s Aid Society, Good Shepherd,
or all the other organizations as they work
in these spaces. Utilizing places like the PAL
(Police Athletic League).
SM: Th e needs of special needs kids
are pretty broad, but what will be your
immediate initiatives for kids with special
needs in public schools?
DB: Access to services is so critically
important. I can’t say what would be
the thing most immediately needed, but
I’m literally just coming from visiting the
Windward School on the Upper East Side.
It’s the preeminent but private school in
New York state for kids with dyslexia. So I
think one of the fi rst things we’re going to be
doing is screening to identify the many kids
in our system that have never been identifi
ed with these learning disabilities.
We’re going to have to develop a level of
professional development and training for
each student where they’re able to
help provide a level of deeper context
for the teaching of reading.
Th e basic approach that we use
right now is something called
balanced literacy. I think this has
been a failed approach, and particularly
for Black and brown
kids. I certainly would like
to see us return to a
phonetic approach
to teaching reading,
which I think
is based in real-time.
Th at’s what they do
at the Windward
School, and they
turn the lives around
of so many young people. Th e challenge
is that a place like Windward is a place
that pretty much is for affl uent families,
overwhelmingly white families who could
aff ord to take a course. But I don’t think you
need to be white and aff ord to learn how
to read and so that’s what we’re going to be
committed to doing. A full-on redirection
of our school system and teaching our kids
the fundamental nature of how to read. It’s
going to take them a while and it won’t happen
overnight, but our commitment will
begin on day one.
SM: What common ground with the
United Federation of Teachers union
would you point out as a starting point
to working with them in partnership to
improve city schools?
DB: I think the UFT as a union should be
focused on how to provide the best experience
for the teachers. I want the teachers to
have that joy of teaching, and you get a joy
of teaching when you have a level of success.
Th e UFT currently has a bill that they’ve
been promoting on reducing class size. I
don’t know that we’ll be able to do that for
the entire system, but in areas of the greatest
level of overcrowding, we can work very
closely with the teachers union on that. We
want to be able to off er up a little bit more
autonomy throughout the schools, particularly
in the middle and high school level, to
be able to help create a curriculum that will
work best for the population that they have.
We want to be able to off er that kind
of freedom to schools, but it’s got to be
what I call earned autonomy. You can’t tell
me that you want autonomy when all the
kids are at a failing school. So we’ve got
to put some basic metrics in place. I’ve
been a union member have throughout my
career as a teacher as part of the UFT and
was a CSA Council of School Supervisors
& Administrators union member when I
became an assistant principal and a principal.
I believe in what unions represent,
but there are limits. We want the union to
be partners for the greatest good of what
needs to happen in our schools and for our
teachers.
SM: What best practices instituted at the
Eagle Academy would you like to institute
across the DOE?
DB: We’ve solicited community-based
groups and we’ve solicited individuals who
served as mentors with our kids. At every
school are a number of kids that would really
struggle. If they had a mentor it could be
transformative for them. Th at’s one. We also
always used the mantra of the 100 Black
men organization which is they will be what
they see and what does that mean? Th at we
got to expose them to people and careers
that will help them to dream of a great possibility.
How can you dream of becoming
an investment banker if you’ve never met
one or the dream of a career in the biotech
industry if you’ve never seen anybody who’s
ever done that?
Th ose are things that we do at Eagle,
which creates the aha moment for the kids
to get the lights to go on and help to put
context for their learning. Th at’s what we’ve
done and I think that we can absolutely
scale. We want to get corporations across
the city to provide internship opportunities
for all of our kids. We think that that’s
something that is doable and we will be very
focused on it across the system. Childhood
college access: Th at’s a big deal we do at
Eagle. We take them to diff erent colleges.
We have called representatives from universities
across the country who come in
and meet with parents. We have kids who
are in college now who come back to the
neighborhoods that they grew up in and
talk to the kids about how exciting it is to
go to college.
SM: Finally, if you were to revisit your
tenure as chancellor in 10 years, what
accomplishments would you take pride in
seeing?
DB: A very reimagined school system.
Th at kids are not locked in on day-to-day
school. Th at you’ll school connected to
mastery learning and not the traditional
45 minute period that you have in high
school for four years until we graduate you.
I would love to engage in mastery learning
where magic kids could graduate high
school in three years if they’ve mastered all
the content, providing that type of incentive.
I want to see kids in high school openly
engage in the corporate space through
internships. I want to see a teaching course
that has been exposed to what the 21st-century
economy and workforce really look
like. Teachers have no idea what it means to
work at Google or Microsoft . I want to see
them in a professional development experience.
Th ose are some of the things that I
would like.
David C. Banks
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
