Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan
June 7, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s controversial plan to eliminate the admissions test currently required for specialized high schools passed the Assembly Education Committee yesterday, with a vote in the affirmative from its chair, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan.
The proposal moved out of the education committee yesterday into the rules committee with 16 votes, the majority of which were cast in the affirmative by Democrats. All eight Republicans voted against the mayor’s plan.
Nolan reportedly said she voted in favor of the plan so that further discussion could be produced on the issue, according to the New York Post.
The Assemblywoman’s office did not return a request for further comment on her vote by press time.
While the bill passed the committee only yesterday, State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said today that the bill would not be voted on this session, according to NY1 News. The announcement means the bill won’t be deliberated on until next year, as the legislative session ends on June 20.
The mayor’s plan, announced along with new schools chancellor Richard Carranza last week, is meant to improve diversity at the city’s eight specialized high schools by increasing enrollment of black and Latino students and other disadvantaged students.
The proposal would get rid of the 180-minute exam taken by eighth and ninth graders interested in enrolling into a specialized high school, and instead reserve seats for top performers at each middle school. The elimination of the specialized high school test, however, requires state legislation.
The city says its plan would see 45 percent of specialized high school offers going to black and Latino students, compared to 9 percent currently. In addition, 62 percent of offers would go to female students compared to the current trend of 44 percent.
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Ms. Moskowitz is known to shed the underperforming students from her rosters, then takes the newly lowered number of students and uses those statistics to say there is now a higher percentage of students performing at perficent levels. That’s called a numbers scam that was deployed by the communists in the early 20th century. Don’t be so gullible el loco.
What a racist move by Mayor Deblasio… who will suffer the Asians, a minority. Spelling bee champs.. the ones in the library in Elmhurst by my Moms house who make me wish they had an express line cause they take out so many books at a time.
She’s in favor of the dumb down of our specialized high schools. Catherine Nolan also against the Charter Schools. She’s in the pocket of the teacher’s union. Remember NOT TO VOTE FOR HER. Same with JIMMY VAN BRAMER – vote them out office. Improve the educational standards for grades K- through 8th grades. The best and the brightest in our public school system need a space where they can thrive and expand their minds and feed off of other bright and intelligent kids who excel in the sciences, math, arts, humanities. No better place than the specialized high schools. Chancellor Carranza is a stooge of the Mayor. No wonder Miami Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho backed out of working for this Mayor. Mayor is creating quotas. None of this would be necessary if Public School parents were more involved in the education of their kids and not just rely on teachers to educate their children. Success Academy Charter School in Harlem and a host of others Charter Schools have 100% graduation rates many of it’s top students end up in the Ivy league universities, the vast majority minority Black and Hispanic – they are the best and the brightest and their parents chose an alternative than their local public K-8th grade schools. The Mayor has a regressive agenda of destroying this city. You will see a flight out of the city or an uptick in private school admissions applications or a call for more charter schools because of this.
Please let Ms. Nolan know how you feel. NolanC@nyassembly.gov
The problem is not the specialized schools or their entrance exam. We do not need “special” treatment. Our kids will always be accused of getting into these schools by preferential treatment. This plan only turns these wildly successful schools that are the jewels of our educational system and the envy of the rest of the country into regular public high schools. We do not need special treatment we need better schools from K-12 not just K-8 and more parental involvement. This plan is an insult to us hispancs.
I can’t believe Ms. Nolan would vote yes for this plan. This plan is nothing but racist and disrespectful to all those who do make the grade including the black and hispanic students who did pass the entrance exam. Shame on you Ms. Nolan.
Nolan is incapable of shame. She was Sheldon Silver’s lapdog. She is why we need term limits.
Tooties- And your an example as to why Fox “News” needs to be forced to drop the News portion of their title and replace it with “propaganda”. Entertainment would be fine too, it is their standard go to when they’re caught lying and propagandizing and manipulating people like you.
Butter much? Are you Nolan lackey ?
@MrsGarret- Do you know the meaning of lackey? How can Sean be Ms. Nolan’s lackey when he has a post clearly attacking her position? You sound more like a Faux News lackey.
I can’t say I’m surprised to read that our elected and unelected officials have offered us another sugar coated, extended release poison (that will take years until even the staunchest supporters will not be able to ignore the [un]intended consequences). They’ve been on a tear lately.
The stratification of students starts earlier at elementary school and the disparity is very visible when the students pool together at middle/high schools. It can be painful to watch when the best students from one school are collectively playing catch up to the relatively middle-ranked students from another school. As education tends to be cumulative, this trend gets magnified the higher up you go.
While wealth can help (as well endowed PTA and alumni groups can independently fund enrichment programs and other matters deemed a school priority that the NYCDOE saw fit to de-fund years ago), high levels of general parental involvement is ultimately the common denominator for well-regarded schools. I’ve witnessed the latter transcending beyond race and other cultural backgrounds. Involved parents will generally hold their kids, teachers and administrators accountable in various ways. They will motivate other parents to act on matters they consider important.
As far as the proposed legislature goes – I’d expect a certain degree of subversion to the new realities at first by parents desperate to have their kid attend a particular school. The wealthier families will be better able to do this.
But eventually, that will give way as the school population shifts with progressively more students admitted that are unable to keep up with the existing well-regarded curriculum (the aforementioned disparity!). The school will develop a public reputation of being filled with underachievers and trouble makers. It generally becomes self-reinforcing over time.
Specialized science high schools will then join the ranks of dysfunctional NYCDOE schools. Many previously well-regarded but much lower profile public schools have already succumbed…
If the city is actually serious about improving education and academic outcomes for the population they wish to target – they have to stop playing games with how they manage schools and properly fund them to start! It may not pack the same punch as active parental involvement, but at least give the motivated students stuck in a less-than-great school a chance and the resources to do better!
Why is it that black and Hispanic kids can’t maje it on their own without help while poor Asian kids can. Chinese people have been the victim of terrible bigotry in this country maybe not as bad as blacks but much worse than Hispanics but excel in school without any unfair advantages. Hey mayor bleeding heart Bill deBlasio why do you have to eliminate transit fair evasion as a crime because blacks and Hispanics do it the most. Why do you have to eliminate possession of small quantities of marijuana because blacks and Hispanics do it the most.
At the press conference for his misguided plan the Hispanic schools head led the crowd in a chant of its not the student its the system! I got news for you it is the student. Give black and Hispanic students the tools to succeed and stop making excuses for them and giving them unfair help at the expense of other ethnic groups that work harder. Let’s see the Sunnyside Post print this letter!
The mayor should look at the 150 black students and 300 hispanic students who did pass the admission test instead of dismissing their accomplishment and “blaming the system”.
Make the school’s better. Maybe the culture in some communities has to change to encouraging learning and respect for hard work and schools instead of crime and violence. But people are afraid to have that discussion because they will be called racist.
She is a prime example why TERM LIMITS are needed for New York State and Federal Congress!
Marie – You don’t want her in office then don’t vote for her. We don’t need term limits. Let the voters decide.
I never do. She is terrible and arrogant when she talks to people.
He is an embarrasment to the democratic party .He is a typical communist.
He is an embarrasment period. To quote a columnist “this is his Worst Idea Ever”.
A disgraceful plan that would discriminate against the best students
This woman is the worst. She wants to discriminate against smart ASIAN students who have passed the entrance exam. Cathy: how about improving the lousy public schools? Naaah: you are in the pocket of the UFT. You also used to sit in Sheldon Silver’s lap. Maybe you can visit him in prison!
Fox News – Eva Moskowitz is a proven con artist. Paying educators $30K a year is terrible for our economy and students.Fact! Please stop demonizing unions and educators with your propaganda. A news outlet should inform not manipulate.
What do you mean a proven con artist? You are probably a teacher who wants his job protected. Stop the lying and come up with proof.
Criticisms have been leveled at Moskowitz’s record educating low-performing, English-language learning, and disabled students. English-language learners are significantly underrepresented at Success, and critics have charged that some lower-grade children eligible for government-mandated special education accommodation, or IEPs, have been withdrawn, effectively winnowing students before third grade, the year state testing begins.
Have you seen the postings posted el loco? If he is in support of charter schools I’ll go the other way.
El Loco- Let’s compare the pay pulled down by public school superintendents with the money paid to the CEO’s of some charter school networks. Before you read on, write down your hunch: which school CEO/Superintendent is raking in the most on a per-student basis? And who’s the lowest paid on a per-student basis?
Let’s begin with Chicago, where the public school enrollment (including charter schools) is 392,000 students. The Chicago school leader (called the CEO) is paid $250,000. That means he’s paid 64 cents per pupil. Factor out the 61,000 students in charter schools, and Forrest Claypool’s wages per student go up to 76 cents per kid.
NYC Chancellor Carmen Fariña presides over a school system with 1,1o0,000 students and is paid $227,727 per year. That comes to $.20 per child. But she also receives her retirement annuity of $208,506, so if we factor that in, she’s pulling down a whopping $.40 per child.
New York’s most prominent charter school operator is, of course, Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academies. She makes $567,000 a year, as Ben Chapman reported in the New York Daily News. Success Academies enrolls 11,000 students, the same number as in Chicago’s Noble Network.
Let’s do the math. 567,000 divided by 11,000 equals 51.35, meaning that Ms. Moskowitz is earning $51.35 per student.
If Carmen Fariña were running Success Academies instead of the nation’s largest school district, at her current pay rate of 40 cents per student she’d be earning $4400 a year!
Put another way, Eva Moskowitz is being paid about 128 times more per student than Chancellor Fariña.
Cut everyone else’s salaries and lump it into her package sounds like a con to me.
Looks as if El Loco got schooled.