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Inside 24 hours of saying his plans to step down as New York Metropolis’s colleges chancellor, David Banks flanked Mayor Eric Adams at a jubilant press convention naming a successor to run the nation’s largest college system.
Neither Banks nor Adams took credit score for choosing Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a deputy chancellor, as the subsequent colleges chief. As an alternative, they pointed to a high aide seated within the entrance row who had labored behind the scenes to raise her: First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg.
The second revealed a dynamic contained in the Schooling Division that would show crucial to how nicely it withstands the disaster enveloping the Adams administration. Whereas Banks has served as the general public face of the division, Weisberg has taken the lead backstage shaping and implementing coverage as his second in command.
Weisberg, 61, first joined the division as a labor negotiator throughout Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, which favored constitution college enlargement and clashed with the academics union. After leaving the division, he spent a dozen years at a nationwide nonprofit targeted on instructor high quality that superior contentious coverage concepts.
He now oversees a sprawling portfolio that features an overhaul of studying and math instruction, opening new colleges, and supervising the division’s senior management. He additionally led coverage discussions on hot-button points, from reintroducing selective admissions within the wake of the pandemic to navigating complicated tradeoffs stemming from a state mandate to slash class sizes.
“A whole lot of advocates sort of describe him because the shadow chancellor,” mentioned Matt Gonzales, director of the Schooling Justice Analysis and Organizing Collaborative on the NYU Metro Middle. “In all places we flip, Dan Weisberg is displaying up.”
A graduate of town’s college system, Weisberg has gained admirers. Some dad and mom and training leaders described Weisberg as considerate and unusually responsive for a senior official. Others bristled that he’s a lawyer by coaching with no educating expertise who nonetheless shapes insurance policies immediately affecting school rooms. And integration advocates have been annoyed by his assist for selective admissions and gifted applications, which they blame for exacerbating college segregation.
However as a raft of high officers resign from the Adams administration within the wake of an unprecedented federal indictment of the mayor, Weisberg is now accountable for sustaining stability on the Schooling Division — an pressing activity within the weeks forward.
Banks’ sudden departure comes simply over a month after his telephones have been seized by federal brokers as a part of a sprawling probe into Adams’ internal circle. Banks, who contends the mayor pushed him out of workplace forward of schedule, has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Within the meantime, Weisberg should assist rapidly clean the transition for Aviles-Ramos, who’s taking up as chancellor months sooner than deliberate. And he should additionally assist cement the administration’s signature coverage initiatives so that they outlast Adams, who has pledged to run for re-election however faces corruption fees, a number of federal investigations, and an unsure future as mayor.
Even earlier than the latest upheaval, Weisberg mentioned the division targeted on constructing political assist for his or her high initiatives amongst dad and mom, educators, and union officers to make sure they outlive the Adams administration.
“Sustainability is one thing it is best to at all times bear in mind,” he advised Chalkbeat. “That was true underneath Mayor Bloomberg. It’s true underneath Mayor Adams. You by no means know precisely how a lot time you may have.”
A one-time union foe, Weisberg charts a brand new path
Three years in the past, as Banks ready to take the reins of the Schooling Division, he referred to as Weisberg for recommendation. The pair didn’t have a detailed relationship, although Weisberg had lengthy admired the Eagle Academy community of public colleges that Banks helped launch to serve boys of colour.
Weisberg, then CEO of TNTP, a company targeted on instructor high quality, mentioned he and Banks shared the same humorousness and “clicked.”
However Banks’ determination to faucet Weisberg instantly raised alarms from a strong constituency.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Academics, expressed “extreme doubts” about Weisberg, he mentioned in a latest interview. One educator wrote on the time that Weisberg is “one of the crucial harmful individuals within the nation who might rise to be the second highest rating administrator” of town’s public colleges.
Weisberg helped lead labor negotiations underneath Bloomberg, who noticed the academics union as a strong roadblock to overhauling the general public college system. The administration pursued concepts that usually drew fierce resistance: embracing constitution colleges, pushing for benefit pay, vowing to overtake instructor tenure protections, and shutting a raft of colleges, changing them with new smaller ones.
His function at TNTP, previously often called The New Instructor Venture, additionally drew scrutiny, because the group typically really helpful insurance policies that earned pushback from some educators. Shortly after becoming a member of TNTP, Weisberg co-authored a report that argued college districts have been failing to differentiate between wonderful and weak educators, successfully treating them as equivalent “widgets.” The influential paper helped spark a controversial push in lots of states to overtake instructor analysis programs, together with tying them to standardized take a look at scores.
When Weisberg was tapped to be Banks’ high deputy, taking a roughly $90,000 pay lower from his $354,000 TNTP wage, a few of his critics feared the administration would observe by on the coverage concepts Weisberg had been sharpening for years.
However Banks has targeted on a narrower set of insurance policies which have gained broad assist, together with studying and math curriculum overhauls and a push to expose highschool college students to profession choices. As an alternative of attempting to remodel the best way academics are assessed and ferreting out weaker ones — proposals which have fallen out of favor politically — Weisberg has helped create extra consistency over the supplies academics use.
The academics union is a key backer of these efforts, whilst some educators and fogeys increase considerations in regards to the high quality of the curriculum selections and complain that the mandate is just too inflexible.
Weisberg nonetheless believes the college system is falling quick for too many youngsters and that policymakers ought to take larger dangers. However he additionally thinks the curriculum overhauls are doubtlessly transformative and dovetail along with his prior give attention to instructor high quality.
“What I’m assured in is that the standard and the effectiveness of academics as an entire goes to extend on account of all this work,” he mentioned.
He’s even gained some grudging assist from Mulgrew, who pointed to Weisberg’s function spinning up coaching to assist academics acclimate to the brand new curriculums.
“Weisberg has been excellent with working with us on these issues,” Mulgrew mentioned. However the union chief stopped in need of a full endorsement of his management. “I feel he follows the lead of the individuals he works for.”
The clock could also be operating out on the Adams administration
With just a little over a 12 months left in his first time period, Adams has pleaded not responsible to corruption fees and vowed to remain in workplace regardless of requires him to step down. However uncertainty over how lengthy he would possibly stay in management looms over the college system.
Beneath a distracted Metropolis Corridor with little political capital to spend on new initiatives, Weisberg and different high training officers should both give attention to protecting the lights on and guaranteeing Adams’ current training priorities take root or head for the exit themselves.
Aaron Pallas, an training coverage skilled at Columbia College’s Academics School and longtime observer of town’s public colleges, mentioned Weisberg might play a precious function amid the uncertainty and transition to a brand new chancellor. Weisberg has a decent relationship with Aviles-Ramos, elevating her as a high aide in his workplace earlier than recommending her to exchange Banks. And he has deep information of the literacy overhaul and profession training enlargement, the division’s signature priorities.
“He can in all probability troubleshoot and velocity these alongside higher than somebody coming into his function anew,” Pallas mentioned. “On the similar time, there’s a lot in-built regularity in a big forms that individual individuals might not matter fairly as a lot as you suppose.”
Not everyone seems to be rooting for stability. Some critics of Adams’ training agenda hope the political disaster at Metropolis Corridor results in new management on the Schooling Division sooner moderately than later, pointing to heated fights over the division’s funds and prekindergarten program cuts.
Faculty integration advocates even have been annoyed that the administration has resisted calls to deal with the system’s standing as among the many most segregated within the nation.
As an alternative, the division has expanded tutorial screening within the wake of the pandemic, and extra just lately reinstated particular entry for Manhattan college students at a handful of coveted excessive colleges, choices Weisberg helped facilitate. Banks and different high officers argue accelerated studying alternatives are essential to protecting households within the system, although advocates contend these insurance policies will exacerbate segregation.
“I in the end need to see change — this administration has felt chaotic and demanding for the previous few years,” mentioned Gonzales, of the NYU Metro Middle, a critic of Adams’ training insurance policies and an integration advocate. “Dan Weisberg is a part of that.”
East Harlem mother or father chief Kaliris Salas-Ramirez agreed. She mentioned the administration has not moved swiftly sufficient to plan for a state regulation that mandates smaller class sizes, a difficulty Weisberg has helped oversee.
And he or she is skeptical of the division’s curriculum mandates and Weisberg’s supervision of them given his lack of educating expertise. She pointed to the choice to dissolve the division’s division of educating and studying, a transfer Weisberg supported, which led to the resignation of Carolyne Quintana, a popular deputy chancellor. (Weisberg declined to touch upon the specifics of her exit, and Quintana couldn’t be reached for remark.)
“This man has no background on how youngsters study,” mentioned Salas-Ramirez, who labored with Weisberg as a former member of town’s Panel for Instructional Coverage. “For me, that’s been the troublesome a part of participating with him.”
Weisberg has additionally confronted some scrutiny over administration of his workers, together with raises and promotions to an enrollment official within the wake of an investigation that discovered she bought clothes on-line throughout the work day, the New York Submit reported. The worker has since been fired and the Schooling Division’s enrollment chief, the staffer’s supervisor, was reassigned. (Weisberg declined to touch upon the incident by a spokesperson, citing pending litigation.)
But different mother or father leaders are rooting for Weisberg to remain. “I’ve had a whole lot of emotions in regards to the DOE through the years, and Dan was one of many first individuals who made me really feel I might belief him – that he wasn’t treating dad and mom like mosquitoes,” mentioned Deborah Alexander, vice chairman of the Citywide Council on Excessive Faculties who usually helps efforts to increase selective admissions. “He at all times, at all times would reply to emails.”
For his half, Weisberg is adamant that he’s not eyeing the exit.
“I intend to remain on so long as the mayor and Melissa need me to serve in that function,” he mentioned. He left the door solely barely ajar.
“You’ll be able to by no means make sure what’s coming down the pike that may change issues,” he mentioned. “However I’m very dedicated to the work we’ve undertaken.”
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, protecting NYC public colleges. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
