WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES DECEMBER 16, 2021 7
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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 Mayor-elect 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 cofounded
the Bronx School of Law, Government, and
Justice before founding Eagle Academy, a network
of district schools that serve low-income 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. The following interview was
lightly edited for clarity and length.
Schneps Media (SM): 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 year-round 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. That’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. There are
thousands of community-based 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 9Police
Athletic League).
SM: The 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. The 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.
That’s what they do at the Windward School, and they
turn the lives around of so many young people. The
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.
The 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: 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. That kids
are not locked in on day-to-day school. That 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. Those are some of
the things that I was like.
DAVID C. BANKS
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