Mayor-elect Eric Adams got it right in introducing David Banks as his choice for city Schools Chancellor: “The cavalry is coming. Help is on the way,”
Banks is an excellent choice. The career educator has an insider’s knowledge of the Department of Education but has taken an outsider’s approach in bringing innovation and excellence to the schools he’s headed — Bronx HS for Law, Government & Justice and the six-school Eagle Academy for Young Men network.
That showed in his warning that he’ll target the bureaucracy ensconced at the DOE’s Tweed headquarters.
Word that Dan Weisberg, a veteran of the Mike Bloomberg/Joel Klein DOE, will be joining Banks as first deputy chancellor is another good sign. Both are known for putting students’ and parents’ their concerns front-and-center.
And Banks was crystal-clear on the need to heed parents, vowing to never announce a major policy initiative unless “surrounded by parents and families who have cosigned what we are doing.” More, he said you can’t “create an innovative school system without engaging the community.”
It’s refreshing to have an incoming mayor and schools chancellor who don’t worship at the “more money” altar: The DOE’s $38 billion-a-year budget is more than enough, if it’s spent right.
One early target for Banks: The DOE’s drive, exposed in a recent Post op-ed, to silence critics on parent-led Community Education Councils with an Orwellian “code of conduct” set for passage at the Dec. 21 Panel for Education Policy meeting.
The rule is meant to shield the DOE from any and all criticism from duly elected council members, especially those who question “equity” moves to undermine standards.
Banks plainly means to reverse the de Blasio-era war on excellence, which is likely good news for charter schools as well. It looks like the only ones who need to worry are the Tweed bureaucrats overpaid for pushing race-obsessed nonsense.
“Don’t give up, New York. Don’t surrender,” Adams finished his Thursday remarks. The public-school parents who’ve stuck with the system should demand the next mayor and chancellor deliver the “transformation” they promise.