Bank Street College of Education

Bank Street College of Education
Type	Private graduate school and school for children
Established	1916; 108 years ago
Endowment	$49.1 million (2019)
President	Shael Polakow-Suransky
Academic staff	125
Students	549 (2018, graduate school); 451 (2019, school for children)
Location	New York City, New York, United States; 40°48′20″N 73°57′59″W / 40.80556°N 73.96639°W
Campus	Urban
Website	bankstreet.edu
2km; 1.2miles Bank Street College of Education

Bank Street College of Education is a private school and graduate school in New York City. It consists of a graduate-only teacher training college^[4] and an independent nursery-through-8th-grade school. In 2020 the graduate school had about 65 full-time teaching staff and approximately 850 students, of which 87% were female.^[4]

History

The origins of the school lie in the Bureau of Educational Experiments, which was established in 1916 by Lucy Sprague Mitchell, her husband Wesley Clair Mitchell, and Harriet Merrill Johnson; Lucy Mitchell's cousin Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge provided financial support.^[5]^[6] The bureau was intended to foster research into, and development of, experimental and progressive education, and was influenced by the thinking of Edward Thorndike and John Dewey, both of whom Mitchell had studied with at Columbia University. The bureau was run by a council of twelve members, but Mitchell was its most influential figure until the 1950s.^[5] The name of the institution derives from its 1930–1971 location at 69 Bank Street in Greenwich Village.^[7]

In 1919 the bureau started a nursery school for children from fifteen to thirty-six months old; Harriet Johnson was the director. The school fed in to the Play School for three- to seven-year-olds run by Caroline Pratt; eight-year-olds were taught in a special class by members of the bureau.^[5]

Bank Street College of Education served as an academic consultant during development for Multiplication Rock, the first series of Schoolhouse Rocks!^[8]

In 1958, the college received a $1,000,000 grant from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for a five-year study on how schools for younger children could improve mental health development.^[9]

The personal computer word processing application Bank Street Writer (1981) was developed by the college and marketed to school and home computer markets. Its brand extension Bank Street Music Writer (1985) was a music composition application.

Doug Knecht is the current Dean of Children's Programs and Head of the School for Children.^[10]

Academics

Accreditation

Since 1960 the school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.^[11] Bank Street School for Children is accredited by the New York State Association of Independent Schools.^[3]

Head Start

It is one of about hundred schools in the Manhattan area which participate in the national Head Start Program of the Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.^[12]

Bank Street School for Children

The Bank Street School for Children is a private coed preschool, elementary school, and middle school within the Bank Street College of Education.^[13]^[14] The school includes children in nursery through eighth grade,^[14] split into three divisions: the lower school, for nursery through first grade; the middle school, for second through fourth grades; and the upper school, for fifth through eighth grades.^[15] There are 451 children enrolled as students,^[15] approximately 50% of which are students of color.^[16] The instructors are often current or past students of Bank Street's graduate school, which shares a campus with the School for Children—including more than half of the teachers who are alumni.^[17]

The School for Children is accredited by the New York State Association of Independent Schools and is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools.^[15]^[18]

Bank Street Bookstore

The Bank Street Bookstore was an Upper West Side community bookstore that sold children's books and educational toys and games. It opened in 1970 in the lobby of Bank Street College, and moved to its second location on 112th Street and Broadway shortly thereafter. Its final location was on Broadway and West 107th Street until its closing in August 2020, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.^[19] The bookstore also hosted readings, daily story time, and celebrity events, with past guests including Stephen Colbert, Julianne Moore, and author Jeff Kinney.

Alumni

Graduate school

Bill Ayers, militant activist and educator
Lee Bennett Hopkins, educator, poet, author, and anthologist
Claudine K. Brown, director at the Smithsonian Institution, museum educator, artist
Margaret Wise Brown, author of classic children's books such as Goodnight Moon
Ruth Cohn, psychotherapist, educator, and poet
Rosina Fernhoff, Obie Award-winning theater actress
Robie Harris, award-winning children's book author
Trudie Lamb-Richmond, Schaghticoke Tribal Nation member and educator
Anne Mitchell, early childhood education consultant and co-founder of the Alliance on Early Childhood Finance
Shael Polakow-Suransky, current president and former Chief Academic Officer of the New York City Education Department
Miriam Roth, Israeli writer and scholar of children's books, kindergarten teacher, and educator
Julie Stevens, actress and acting coach
Dorothy Stoneman, founder and president of YouthBuild USA
Ellen Tarry, the first African-American picture book author
Edith Thacher Hurd, children's book writer with more than 70 books to her credit as well as a few collaborations with Margaret Wise Brown
Lucy Wainwright Roche, singer-songwriter
Sara Wilford, philanthropist and granddaughter of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Valerie Wilson Wesley, author and former executive editor of Essence Magazine
Diane Wolkstein, folklorist and a former New York City official storyteller
Adam Gidwitz, author