Schools Chancellor David Banks is making the case for mayoral control, or as he and Mayor Adams are more fond of calling it, mayoral accountability.

“Language matters, and people don’t like the sense of being quote-unquote controlled, so just the messaging of control kind of gets people’s backs up,” Banks said in a sit-down interview with NY1 education reporter Jillian Jorgensen. “So the notion that the mayor would ultimately be the one who is held accountable for the school system, I think from the messaging standpoint, is something that people can wrap their minds around.”

Before mayoral control began in 2002, the city’s schools were run by thirty-two community school boards and the seven-member Board of Education.

“There’s no perfect governance system. They all have their challenges,” Banks said. “And I was in the system many years ago as a teacher, under the old community boards, community school boards, and it was very, very challenged, rife with fraud and corruption. I remember, Jill, when people had to pay for their jobs.”

But few of those who criticize mayoral control are calling for a return to the old system. Instead, at hearings being held by the State Education Department across the city, dozens of parents and educators have argued the mayoral control system ought to be reformed, to allow for more checks on the mayor.

“I think that part of the challenge that we have, you know, I was at the most recent hearing that you were, in Manhattan and I looked over at a couple of my deputy chancellors and said you know what, we got here a little late, right,” Banks said. “And what I meant by that is a lot of what we’re hearing is a response not necessarily to this administration, it’s to prior administrations — it’s the Bloomberg administration, folks are still upset about the further proliferation of charter schools, collocations inside of the traditional public schools.”

Banks says he’s listening to school communities in ways other administrations did not. But still, at some Panel for Educational Policy meetings, dozens of parents have spoken out against proposed school mergers or relocations, only for the board, composed mostly of mayoral appointees, to approve them — leaving some feeling unheard.

“After the decision was made, people could easily say, ‘Chancellor, you didn’t hear us.’ I heard them very clearly, but I made what I thought was the best decision on behalf of the system,” Banks said.

Banks points out that school boards aren’t a panacea, either.

“We’ve been able to watch all across the country, there are community school boards that don’t have mayoral accountability and they are banning the use of Black history in schools, they are folks who have voted to say we don’t want to teach about the LGBT community,” Banks said.

Banks says he wants to be judged on the data — noting graduation rates are up nearly thirty points since mayoral control began. He pointed to new schools, like the Bronx location of Bard Early College High School, where our interview took place, and to the launch of a new reading curriculum.

He says the current system allows for a unified response to problems like COVID and the migrant crisis in a way school boards did not. But City Hall’s policy of moving migrant families with school-aged children from their shelters every sixty days is among the decisions critics point to as part of the problem.

“Every mayor has to make tough or difficult decisions, but you shouldn’t have the threat of mayoral accountability is going to be removed from you, like you’re going to be punished, because folks don’t agree with you on a particular issue. That’s not fair as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Ultimately, it’s the State Legislature he’ll have to convince, and some are skeptical. Two years ago, Mayor Adams joined their hearing on mayoral control only briefly, and virtually, from a moving vehicle. Lawmakers and the administration have clashed over a bill requiring smaller class sizes that was passed alongside the two-year extension of mayoral control in 2022. Budget cuts and investigations have left Adams in a less-than-ideal position as negotiations begin.

“I like our chances, and that is not just a notion, that is because of relationships that we have built. All of the elected officials in Albany who ultimately have to make the final decision, you would be hard pressed to find one who would tell you that this chancellor has not been open and transparent and responsive to their needs. We may disagree on some of these issues, class size is a big deal and the implementation of it over the next five years is going to be a challenge. But there are lots of other challenges that we need to meet as well,” he said.