Bank Street College of Education is a private school, graduate school, and education research center located in New York City's Upper West side neighborhood. It consists of a graduate-only teacher training college[4], Bank Street Graduate School of Education, and an independent nursery-through-8th-grade school, the Bank Street School for Children.
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]
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]
Bank Street College of Education is the education and research arm of Bank Street. It began in 1916 as The Bureau of Educational Experiments (BEE) in and was founded by Lucy Sprague Mitchell in NYC. Spearheading research into understanding how children learn and grow, Bank Street developed The Bank Street approach, known as the developmental-interaction approach,[11] an expression of progressive education.[12] In the 1950s, the school changed its name to Bank Street College of Education.[13]
Bank Street Education Center
Bank Street Education Center
The Education Center at Bank Street provide various levels of trainings and education to schools and communities across the country with the purpose of making education more equitable.[14]
Bank Street School for Children
Bank Street School for Children logo
The Bank Street School for Children is a coedprivatepreschool, elementary school, and middle school within the Bank Street College of Education.[15][16] The school includes children in nursery school through eighth grade.[16] Student to teacher ratio averages around 6:1 with an average class size of 39. As of 2025, tuition ranges from $37,554 - $68,793 per school year. Bank Street School for Children offers various tuition payment options and financial aid, with about 59% of applicants receiving financial aid in an average amount around $21,618.[17] There are approximately 451 children enrolled as students,[18] approximately 43% of which are students of color.[17] 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.[19]
In the 1930s, Bank Street moves to 69 Bank Street and opens as The Cooperative School for Teachers, a joint venture with other schools with a goal to develop teacher education and training. In the 1950s, the school's name changed from The Cooperative School for Teachers to the Bank Street College of Education[13] after earning accreditation by the Board of Regents of New York State to award Master of Science degrees.[7]
As of 2024, the graduate school had about 65 full time and 55 part-time faculty and staff and approximately 844 students, of which 87% were female.[21]
Bank Street Family Center
Bank Street Family Center provides full-day, year-round childcare, preschool, and pre-k options for children between 6 months to five years old.[22]
Head Start
Bank Street was influential in the establishment of the National Head Start Program.[23]
Fisher, Patricia, and Anne Perryman. "A brief history: Bank street college of education." (2000) online.
Nager, Nancy, and Edna Shapiro. "A progressive approach to the education of teachers: Some principles from Bank Street College of Education." Occasional Paper Series (2007) #18 online
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