Incoming Chancellor David Banks says NYC’s school system is ‘fundamentally flawed’
Mayor-elect Eric Adams and his newly announced schools Chancellor David Banks vowed Thursday to upend New York City’s education department, offering pointed criticisms of the city’s vast education bureaucracy and promising to better serve its most vulnerable students.
Outside of P.S. 161 in Brooklyn, which Banks attended through the fifth grade, the pair repeatedly noted that roughly 65% of students of color are not considered proficient in reading or math, and argued that the education department’s $38 billion budget is not producing the results it should.
“If 65% of white children were not reaching proficiency in the city, they would burn the city down,” Adams said.