His early plans, outlined as part of an annual address on the state of the nation’s largest school system, also called on using generative AI in college and career advising, and making the school system more efficient.
“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,” Banks said during the State of Our Schools at Frank Sinatra High School in Queens.
“And think about it — if we’re getting that information each day, why would we even need standardized tests?”
Apart from AI, the chancellor, who’s been ensnared in a federal probe, tried Tuesday to turn the focus onto the schools themselves. He announced that an accelerated high school will open in southeast Queens partnering with historically Black colleges, and highlighted progress on aligning curriculum across the public schools.
After ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, the Education Department banned the AI-powered chatbot on school devices and networks — weighing its capacity as a teaching tool against its potential for cheating and plagiarism on school assignments.
But education officials later walked back its early reaction, including with the rollout of a staff-facing chatbot, called Eureka, that uses AI, and a policy lab focused on responsible use in schools. Banks has also convened an advisory council of about 25 members from Microsoft, IBM and other companies, he announced Tuesday. The group will start meeting next month.
“Like most emerging technology, it’s not fully baked yet, but it is getting more developed every single day,” Banks acknowledged to reporters after the event. “And so, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about some of the the early missteps in AI and somehow write that off as though we don’t need to even be concerned about it. The very nature of AI is it’s going to figure it out.”
As part of his vision, which was still being fleshed out, the chancellor said teachers could use AI to cater lessons to students with a range of abilities, and compile information for teens about colleges, scholarships and job certifications.
Officials are also considering how to use AI to increase “efficiency” in school transportation, enrollment and hiring.
And while exams were here to stay, “the very notion of an annual test that everybody takes as a single moment in time” is “an age-old thing,” Banks said. “In this new 21st century that we are in with the advent of technology, I truly believe that we can do assessment of our students in real time.”
Naveed Hasan, a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy with a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, appreciated the chancellor’s focus on helping teachers adopt AI in their work.
“We definitely don’t want to replace humans in this loop. We want to enhance their ability,” Hasan said. “The adults should feel that’s true, and they really know how to use these tools and which are relevant to their school community.”
During the speech, Banks announced a third accelerated high school will open during the Adams administration next fall in southeast Queens, HBCU Early College Prep.
Students can earn an associate’s degree for free while before graduation as part of a partnership with Delaware State University, and tour historically Black colleges across the country. The two prior school openings were locations of Bard Early College in the south Bronx and central Brooklyn.
And this school year, all 840 elementary schools were required to adopt one of three reading curricular options with a focus on phonics, after the requirement was rolled out in half of school districts last year. Another 400 high schools and 100 middle schools are using standardized math lessons.
All in all, more than half a million students this school year are using a curriculum introduced by Banks or his district superintendents.
At the end of the event, the chancellor — whose two cellphones as of Friday were still in the possession of the FBI — had the audience recite the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, which he introduced as the favorite poem of civil rights leader John Lewis and Nelson Mandela while he was imprisoned.
Banks’ brothers, Deputy Mayor Phil Banks and Terence Banks, a former MTA supervisor-turned-government relations consultant, are also ensnared in the investigation. The feds are looking into whether Terence Banks was involved in any unregistered lobbying, sources previously told The News. His company, The Pearl Alliance, represents several companies with financial interests before his brothers’ agencies.
No one has been charged with any wrongdoing.
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