Schools Chancellor David Banks says New York City to take new approach to teaching kids to read

NEW YORK — City Schools Chancellor David Banks held a “State of our Schools” address on Wednesday morning in Brooklyn.

It was quite an event at Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. In front of a packed auditorium, Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor Banks talked about the challenges they are facing in city education, as well as their plans for the future.

“Today marks the beginning of a very different approach,” Banks said.

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The mayor and chancellor both at the inaugural address on city-wide education. Adams spoke first and painted a picture of a school system dealing with an array of challenges.

“There’s a level of optimism I have every time I walk into a New York City public school. These are challenging moments for us and I’m concerned,” Adams said.

Banks described his mission as bright starts and bold futures. The foundation of both pillars, he said, is a new approach to teaching kids to read.

“For too long we have not taught our kids the proper way to read,” Banks said. “We are fixing that playbook starting right now. We certainly want all our children to love to read, but first we want to teach them what? How to read.”

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School safety, both in and around our schools, was also among the topics discussed. The chancellor mentioned a stabbing Tuesday outside a school in Brownsville.

“The kids who decided to stab other kids yesterday? That’s our failure. It’s our failure,” Banks said.

The new reading curriculum is centered, in part, around the use of phonics. Speaking to reporters after the event, Banks said, “Simply put, our kids are not literate,” adding teachers have taken the blame for that for far too long. He said he thinks the new curriculum will help solve the problem.