Mayor-elect Eric Adams names David Banks next NYC schools chancellor

NEW YORK - Mayor-elect Eric Adams tapped David Banks Thursday as his pick for the next New York City public schools Chancellor on Thursday.

Banks, a native of Brooklyn, issued a warning to the bureaucracy at the city's Department of Education.

"Today is a day to celebrate what will be a rebirth of this department," Banks said. "Here's the question that will be asked of everybody who works throughout this department. If you left and your job disappeared tomorrow, would that change anything that's going on in any of our schools?"

Banks founded the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the Bronx in 2004. Today, the network of public schools has outposts in all five boroughs and Newark. 

Before founding the Eagle Academy, Banks helped start the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice. Meisha Ross Porter, the outgoing schools chancellor, succeeded Banks as principal there.

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David Banks will assume control of 1.1 million public school students. Among his most pressing challenges will be continuing the post-pandemic recovery and deciding what to do about the city’s gifted and talented program.

In a press conference, Banks called the city's school system fundamentally flawed. 

"We spend 38 billion dollars every year in this system and 65 percent of black and brown children never achieve proficiency.  That's a betrayal, and we ought to be outraged by that," Banks said. "There needs to be a transformation, and it will start at the top. We will turn the tables over."

"David Banks is an educator who cares deeply about children," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. "We have worked well with David in the past, and we look forward to continuing that relationship as he takes on the challenge of running 1,600 schools still suffering from the effects of the pandemic."