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Departing New York City schools Chancellor David Banks is already lining up his next act: a book based on his experiences leading the nation’s largest school system.
Banks, who will leave his role Tuesday following a public spat with his longtime friend Mayor Eric Adams over his departure date, has been taking copious notes every single day for the more than 2½ years he served as chancellor, he told parent leaders Thursday.
“I capture my notes on a daily basis, and I have not missed a day since I’ve started,” he told the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee. “Every meeting that I’ve had, everything I do, before I go to bed at night, I reflect on it, it’s captured, I edit it. I’ve got binders now … . I’m going to capture all that into a story.”
It wouldn’t be Banks’ first foray into authorship: He previously wrote a book about his experience founding Eagle Academy, a network of public schools focused on Black and Latino boys.
Banks’ plans mirror those of Adams, who talks frequently about the book he’s assembling based on his mayoralty.
But Banks’ promise to share his unvarnished reflections also takes on a new meaning in the wake of a turbulent end to his tenure that involved FBI agents seizing his cell phones, the historic indictment of Adams on corruption charges, and the chancellor’s stunning rift with Adams over his departure date, which Banks had wanted to come at the end of the calendar year.
Banks’ promise of a tell-all also follows a cryptic social media post from his wife, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who resigned earlier this week and was reportedly upset about how Adams treated Banks. In an Instagram post Wednesday, Wright referenced “testimonies” and having “stories to tell.” Banks’ younger brother, Phil, also resigned over the weekend from his post as deputy mayor of public safety after the federal agents seized his phones. Neither Banks’ brother nor Wright has been accused of wrongdoing.
But even putting aside the recent drama, Banks will have plenty of material to fill his tome. He led a major overhaul of the city’s literacy instruction and ramped up focus on getting high schoolers work experience. He presided over a tumultuous year of student protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, including one that garnered national attention at his alma mater, Hillcrest High School in Queens.
Banks found himself in the national spotlight several months later as he testified before a U.S. congressional panel grilling K-12 school leaders on their responses to antisemitism in schools.
“It’s a job where you in many ways are the repository of just what everybody wants,” he said Thursday. “It’s a great responsibility … and when you do it the way I do it, you can run out of gas.”
Banks told parent leaders at his final meeting with them that one of the best pieces of advice he got about the schools chief job came from former Chancellor Joel Klein, who served for eight years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“You will never be able to keep up with all of it,” Banks recalled Klein telling him. “It’s too much information that happens every single day.”
That advice was part of what prompted Banks to start taking detailed notes, he said.
Banks’ departure coincides with a gathering the city is hosting to discuss the role of artificial intelligence in education, a topic about which Banks has become increasingly passionate.
After attending the AI conference, he said, he’s looking forward to the chance to rest and stop waking up at the crack of dawn, but doesn’t plan to withdraw completely from the education world.
“I’m not done in this work,” Banks said. “I’m just done in this particular role.”
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.
