Chancellor David C. Banks Delivers 2024 State of Our Schools Remarks
The speech can be viewed here
NEW YORK — Remarks as prepared:
Let’s give it up for the Frank Sinatra chamber singers and musicians for their rendition of Saturn by Stevie Wonder!
Thank you, Mayor Adams, for your continued support of our public schools. Thank you Chair Joseph and the many elected officials and community leaders in the room. Please stand. Thank you for being our steadfast partners in this work.
I especially want to shout out the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts for hosting us in this beautiful theater. To Principal Gideon Frankel, Superintendent Hoa Tu, the staff and students who are facilitating today’s logistics, and the talented jazz ensemble that played in the lobby—we appreciate you so much. Of course, we couldn’t host an event at Sinatra without also acknowledging the legendary Tony Bennett and his wife Susan, whose deep commitment to the arts and to NYC students resulted in this terrific school.
Last year, when we hosted the inaugural State of Our Schools event, I talked about the purpose of school: to build bright starts and bold futures for our kids. Today I want to return to this idea, to renew our focus on our ultimate goal. We spend thousands of hours and billions of dollars educating our children—so it’s critical to ask: What are we preparing our kids for?
In these times, the answer to this question can be fraught. Our children are entering a complex and difficult world. They will face a plethora of challenges, from existential crises like climate change to political and social division at home to conflicts raging all over the globe. It is easy to feel fearful about the direction our world seems headed, and daunted by the role schools ought to play amid these challenges.
But in moments like this, it’s critical to stay focused on our mission: “to ensure that each student graduates on a pathway to a rewarding career and long-term economic security, equipped to be a positive force for change.”
This mission goes beyond schooling. In NYC Public Schools, we are educating. There’s a difference! Schooling is simply going through the motions. It’s compliance. It’s kids “doing their work,” with no understanding of why. Education, on the other hand, is transformative. It prepares kids to think critically about everything that is going on around them, and it prepares them to take on the world, even a troubled world.
So to deliver a true education, we have been transforming our school system. When we returned to classrooms after the pandemic, many people said: we cannot go back to the way things were before. We need something totally reimagined. But first, you need the building blocks in place to set students up for success.
We have been doing just that:
From our unprecedented NYC Reads and NYC Solves campaigns to our college and career pathways programs;
From our comprehensive stance on mental health, including free teletherapy for teens and the on-site mental health support for every school, to our upstream approach to safety, including our safer access door locking initiative and Project Pivot, which is engaging hundreds of CBOs to help keep our kids safe;
From our newly created Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning to our gold-standard dual language classes and specialized autism programs;
From our state-of-the-art facilities and fields, to our dramatic increase in MWBE utilization, to Project Open Arms, which has welcomed over 45,000 of our newest New Yorkers with enrollment support, bilingual staff, social-emotional resources, and more.
And don’t forget, that as Covid stimulus funding dried up, in spite of that, we have invested over $1.5 billion back into our schools, thanks to the Mayor’s advocacy and partnership with City Council. In sum, we are building bright starts and bold futures for our kids.
NYC Reads and NYC Solves
Now, I believe transformation begins—first and foremost—with reading, writing, and arithmetic. There is nothing more important than this. If we want our kids to think critically about the world around them, that starts with reading. If we want them to calculate, engineer, and invent their way to solving our society’s problems, that starts with math.
That’s why this year, we expanded NYC Reads to every elementary school—over 840 of them—and to every childhood classroom citywide, and why we launched NYC Solves in over 400 high schools and approximately 100 middle schools. All in all, over half a million students will be impacted by NYC Reads and NYC Solves this year.
Picture this: starting now, if you walk into any 3-K or Pre-K classroom, anywhere in the city, the kids will be learning from the same curriculum, backed by evidence-based literacy strategies, strategies that we know build confident readers. Likewise, our older students in NYC Solves will be learning from consistent, high-quality curricula to become confident mathematicians. This is tremendous—and totally unprecedented in NYC. And because of this massive, unparalleled effort, this generation of NYC students will be able to focus their energy on reaching big goals, not simply doing remediation just to master the basics.
I want to thank our principals, educators, center and home-based providers, staff members, and families, who are building these fundamentals every day in our schools and communities. I also want to thank our 45 incredible superintendents; please stand so we can give you a round of applause. And as we coach tens of thousands of educators, I want to thank Michael Mulgrew and Henry Rubio of the UFT and CSA for their shoulder-to-shoulder partnership.
I’m proud that this work extends even beyond our schools; we are building a culture of literacy across our entire city. We’ve trained over 1,200 parents in the science of reading, making them NYC Literacy Ambassadors, and we’ve launched 21 Literacy Hubs in spaces like bodegas and barbershops.
This work we are doing matters for the children of NYC—and for the country. Right now, the entire nation is looking to New York City, and many are adjusting or reconsidering their own policies in response, including right here in our home state.
And yet, there’s still lots of work to do. It’s important to remember: we aren’t after a quick uptick in test scores. We are laying the foundation for all our students to be on grade level by third grade, and that is long-term work, as we’ve seen in other states and districts that have successfully overhauled their literacy approach. I am confident we are on the right track, and that the effects of NYC Reads and NYC Solves will ripple across our city for years to come.
After all, imagine a school system—and a society—where everyone can read and do math. Our economy would be stronger, our technology sector more innovative, our discourse more respectful, our society more democratic. That is how we fix a troubled world.
College and Career Pathways
But we can’t stop with the fundamentals. To build the leaders of the next generation, we need a new promise to students and families, one that helps our older students see the relevance of their studies, to know why they’re in school in the first place. This new promise says: you will graduate high school with far more than a diploma. When you leave us, you’ll have real workforce skills and experiences, a head start on college credits and industry credentials, and a strong, personalized plan. You’ll be fully prepared to continue learning and growing and to pursue a rewarding, 21st-century career, one that will build economic security and generational wealth. In an ever-evolving economy, we’re guaranteeing each of our students a real shot to achieve the American Dream.
I’m proud to say that our efforts are already producing results:
For our students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade, through our Save For College program, the city, families, and communities have collectively invested over $30M into 200,000 college savings accounts. All the research tells us that when you save for college at the earliest ages, you’re far more likely to enroll, persist, and graduate from college.
Nearly 28,000 students enrolled in CUNY early college coursework last year. Taking one CUNY class would typically cost a student about $2,500, so by enrolling in these courses with us for free in high school, our students saved a total of $70M in tuition and reduced the time it will take them to complete their degree. Thank you so much to our partners at CUNY and to my fellow Chancellor, my friend Félix Matos Rodríguez.
And last school year, our students earned over $8M from paid work experiences at places like Google, Goldman Sachs, Accenture, JetBlue, Northwell Health, JP Morgan Chase, Deloitte, and more.
And we are not done. This year we’ll have 135 schools serving at least 15,000 students participating in our signature FutureReadyNYC program, and we’ve expanded it to include two new industry focus areas: social work and decarbonization. Both are high-demand, high-impact careers with impressive job prospects right here in NYC. We are expanding our partnerships as well—I’m proud to announce Mt. Sinai Health System will be joining us as our newest FutureReady anchor partner! And we are also making financial literacy a mandatory course for every FutureReady school, because students need a strong grasp of budgeting, investing, and finances to thrive in a 21st-century economy.
FutureReady is such an innovative program, and does such a terrific job reimagining the student experience, that people sometimes have a hard time visualizing it. I often get the question: What does this look like in action?
Let me answer this by sharing the story of the High School for Youth and Community Development in Brooklyn. Under the leadership of Superintendent Noah Angeles and Principal Mary Prendergast, Youth and Community Development has launched two FutureReady pathways—technology and, new this year, social work—and is also participating in our Modern Youth Apprenticeship program. Every ninth and tenth grader at the school is enrolled in career exploration and development courses, so students start dreaming and planning for their futures long before senior year.
That early intervention can make all the difference—as it did for a young man named Simon, a recent graduate of YCD. Simon entered ninth grade unsure of his path in life. He was determined to earn his high school diploma, but beyond that, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do. But his experiences at YCD, from participating in the technology pathway in FutureReady to interning at Google, helped him discover his passion and purpose. He ultimately graduated with multiple scholarships, enough to cover the full cost of tuition.
He is now a freshman studying computer science at Stony Brook University. Real exposure makes the difference.
FutureReady is just one way we are reimagining the school experience. Check this out: thanks to updated labor agreements, we have created flexibility for our middle and high schools to offer virtual coursework outside of typical school hours. At the over 100 high schools that have opted-in this year, students can take parts of their courseload virtually, after school or even on the weekends, to help accommodate their particular situations. This flexibility will be a game-changer for students who are under-credited, or who are struggling to balance schoolwork with family responsibilities or a part-time job. It will also be a boon to students on accelerated paths to graduation, who want to get ahead on their courses. Who said it has to take four years to graduate from high school?
And for all students, this flexibility prepares them for an increasingly technology-driven world, where the ability to work virtually, whether at college or in a career, is essential. We are eager to see the impact of this program as we move toward providing virtual coursework for all high schoolers who want it.
And we have one more pathways announcement, one I’m thrilled to share. We are following through on this administration’s promise to open three accelerated high schools in underserved neighborhoods. We’ve already opened Bard Early College in both the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, and now we will be opening a third accelerated high school in Southeast Queens next fall: HBCU Early College Prep.
This school will be the first of its kind in any major metropolitan school district. Through a groundbreaking partnership with Delaware State University, students will have the opportunity to earn an Associate’s degree, for free, while still in high school.
They’ll also be immersed in the history and culture of multiple HBCUs across the country through college visits, study abroad and research opportunities, synchronous instruction from professors, alumni mentors, and more.
HBCUs have produced so many of our country’s leaders, from scientists to executives, artists to athletes to politicians, including our Vice President Kamala Harris. I’m beyond proud that our students will soon benefit from and become a part of that legacy, and that this work will be led by founding Principal Dr. Asya Johnson and Superintendent Josephine Van-Ess. Please stand.
And this is not the only new program on the way. Next school year, we’ll also launch the Bronx STEAM Center, serving over 10 schools in partnership with Montefiore Medical Center. We are also opening the Northwell School of Health Sciences, powered by a nearly $25M grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the single largest donation our school system has ever received.
Although she couldn’t be here this morning, I want to take a moment to acknowledge and applaud our Chief of Student Pathways, Jade Grieve. This reimagining of the high school experience is a direct result of her vision and leadership, and as she leaves us to move to Japan, I want to salute Jade and thank her for bringing our vision for bold futures to life.
Civic Education and Engagement
Now I want to talk about civic education and engagement. A transformative education teaches kids to look outward, to engage with the world around them and to do so as upstanding, decent people. Our school communities must confront the issues of the day. We need to redouble our efforts, as our mission statement puts it, to produce graduates “equipped to be a positive force for change.”
And we adults have to lead by example. When I was called to testify on antisemitism before Congress last spring, I knew it was my responsibility to take a stand against hate and to share our New York values on the national stage.
It was an opportunity to model civic engagement in action, because when difficult topics or situations arise, we cannot bury our heads in the sand.
That’s why we have expanded our Civics for All partner program to 30 districts, representing 1,100 schools, and increased participatory budgeting programs to approximately 600 schools. That’s also why we launched our Meeting the Moment initiative to combat rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, and why every school is required to designate a Respect for All liaison. It’s why we must teach our children about world events, from the Middle East to Haiti, from Ukraine to Sudan. It’s why we celebrate our diversity through our Hidden Voices series—we just released Hidden Voices on Americans with Disabilities, because about 1 in 5 of our students have a disability, and they need to see themselves reflected in our curriculum.
And I’m thrilled that our next Hidden Voices, focused on the Latino community, will be launching very soon. 42% of our students identify as Hispanic, and it's imperative that we study the history and contributions of that community, particularly right now during Hispanic Heritage Month.
To build the leaders of the next generation, I believe we need to provide our students opportunities to practice that leadership. And I believe those opportunities must extend beyond the four walls of the classroom—because you can’t be a citizen of the world with a neighborhood mentality.
Let me give you one example from PS22 in Queens. In May of 2023, a student was hit by a car on Sanford Avenue, a notoriously busy street in front of the school. Thankfully, the student was not seriously injured. But classmates at PS22 were not willing to take any chances going forward—and thanks to their robust implementation of our Civics For All program, they had the tools, skills, and mindsets to advocate for change.
First, the fifth graders observed and mapped the traffic patterns. Then they wrote letters to their local elected officials and the Department of Transportation, which conducted an assessment of the area. They discussed and brainstormed solutions, and this past spring, State Senator John Liu, an alumnus of PS22 himself, Council Member Sandra Ung, Assembly Member Ron Kim, District 25 Superintendent Dr. Michael Dantona, and Principal Jennifer Meyer all joined the students for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly installed traffic light in front of the school. Now that might seem like a small thing, but not to those kids. They learned how government works and used their skills to get things done! The traffic light will save lives and those kids will always remember that they made it happen.
Our students are also taking on climate change. Last year, we expanded composting to all K-12 schools citywide, and many schools formed student-led Green Teams, which model proper waste sorting and teach the school community about composting and how it helps the earth.
We established our first-ever Climate Action Days, with over 1,000 schools participating. Schools held climate-related activities that ranged from plastic-free lunch days to energy audits. Climate Action Days will continue this year, and we expect to see all schools participating.
We also have an election coming up in November, so we have established a student-led voter activation corps. This group will advocate for voter registration this fall and through the spring, as more high schoolers turn 16 and can pre-register to vote. We have already registered over 85,000 voters through our Civics for All program, and today, which is National Voter Registration Day, we encourage you to help get out the vote. As you entered the building earlier, you should have received a blank voter registration application from some of our students. Before the October 26 deadline, share the application with someone in your life who is not yet registered!
And this winter, we are excited to launch a pilot with the Carnegie Corporation and Mikva Challenge focused on building Democratic Classrooms, training our young people and their teachers to uplift student voice, engage in civil discourse on complex issues, and become leaders in their school communities. Our classrooms must be spaces where students discuss the complexities of the issues of the day.
Artificial Intelligence
Today I’ve shared some of the amazing things happening across our system, where school is both grounded in the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy and reimagined for economic opportunity and civic leadership. But transformation only happens when we are ready to embrace change—and that’s exactly what we’re doing with a technology that could supercharge all of this work: generative AI.
When ChatGPT first emerged on the scene, we were wary, wanting to protect our students and ensure a high academic bar. While those instincts were important, we quickly realized: we needed to prepare our students to be on the cutting-edge of this technology. AI is already shaping our workforce and our world, and we have an obligation to equip our children with new skillsets in response.
We also need to harness AI’s vast potential. The question is how. Let me be clear: we don’t have all the answers just yet. Nobody does! But today I want to share some ways where I think we can use AI to solve real challenges in our schools.
First, let’s use AI to truly understand student performance through authentic assessment. To get every child on grade level in reading and math, we need to know exactly where they are succeeding and where they are struggling. But schools across the country have been using a centuries-old approach to assessment, picking a single point in time to evaluate a narrow set of skills.
In contrast, AI can analyze, in real time, all the work that children are producing in school, from homework to classwork to unit tests, to give teachers a daily, accurate, and comprehensive picture of a child’s progress. And think about it—if we’re getting that information each day, why would we even need standardized tests?
Second, let’s use AI to personalize learning. Right now, teachers face the extremely difficult task of catering instruction to students at a range of academic levels, including those who are accelerated, those who are struggling, and a large swath in the middle. We want to help to solve this problem, using AI to provide teachers and families with personalized learning plans for every child, and then offering supplemental instruction aligned to those plans.
Third, let’s use AI to lead students to opportunity through college and career advising. As they plan for futures beyond high school, students need access to comprehensive, up-to-date, and actionable information on their options: which jobs require specialized certifications, which colleges post strong employment outcomes for graduates, where industry demand is growing, and more. AI can sort through vast amounts of relevant data and customize it for individual students, curating coursework, experiences, scholarships, and more. Most schools have a guidance counselor, but very few have college and career counselors.
And the truth is, no one person can be the expert on all of the information needed to guide students to the diversity of career paths out there. Here, AI can help.
And let me emphasize: AI cannot replace the power of a great teacher, counselor, or principal. But AI can elevate their work, greatly improving student outcomes in the process.
In addition to shaping our schools, AI can revolutionize how we function as a system, increasing efficiency in areas ranging from transportation to enrollment to hiring. We already have a staff-facing chatbot, called Eureka, that utilizes AI, and we are looking for more ways to integrate AI into our operations. Doing so will save us time and money—freeing up more resources for schools—and leading to a new and improved customer experience for students, families, and staff.
Of course, these ideas must be coupled with best-in-class data security and privacy. They must also be coupled with a sense of urgency. AI is going to dramatically change the workforce our students are entering, so it’s not only a matter of asking what AI can do for us, but rather what we need to do to keep pace with AI.
To all the technology companies and research institutions investing in AI, I say: start here! We need your expertise to bring these ideas to fruition. For my part, I will be convening the brightest minds across the technology landscape to join my Chancellor’s AI Advisory Council next month. I’m telling you now: at New York City Public Schools, we are not going to let the potential of AI slip by us.
Conclusion
Before I began this speech, you heard some incredible Frank Sinatra students sing a song that is extremely provocative: Saturn by Stevie Wonder. Saturn is particularly suited to a moment like this one. It’s told from the perspective of extraterrestrial beings who have created a society free of conflict and strife. They have visited Earth many times and are shocked that we are still killing each other in wars and polluting our environment, that no matter how much time passes or how many advancements we seem to make, we still can’t figure out the basics on how to live in harmony.
On Saturn, the song continues, people live to be 205. People smile at each other. On Saturn, Stevie Wonder sings, we “don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly.”
That line has always resonated with me. “Don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly.” It speaks to our ultimate potential as human beings. We need to prepare our students not to simply survive the status quo, but to reimagine it and transcend it. We need to teach students new ways of thinking, provide them with fresh and innovative experiences, so they can overcome the intractable challenges in our society and lead us to a brighter day.
I encourage us to continue to embrace true, transformative education. I’m eager to continue building bright starts with our work on literacy and math, and to build bold futures through college and career pathways, civic engagement, and AI—because when our world is struggling, we need strong public education to chart our way forward.
I also want to note: everything I have shared today is the direct result of an incredibly talented senior leadership team. I ask them to please rise so we can thank them for their dedication and hard work. I also want to acknowledge the leaders within each of their divisions, whose contributions have been critical as well.
A final word to all our students, families, and educators, please know this: that when life presents its greatest challenges to you, remember who you are and stand strong. The poem Invictus instructs us in how to be resilient. It was the favorite poem of the late civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis. It was also the poem that Nelson Mandela recited every day during his 27 years of being locked up on Robben Island in South Africa. Please stand and join me in reciting this. Ladies and gentlemen, Invictus straight:
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.