SHSAT Sunset

Category: lobbying

  • City Council staffer accused of stoking tensions at protests over DOE’s plans to diversify NYC schools

    I’ve seen this man at just about every SHSAT demonstration I’ve attended. He’s definitely one of its most prolific organizers.

    The man who’s been the loudest in the raucous movement to oust Richard Carranza is on the payroll of one of the school chancellor’s biggest critics — and more than willing to take one for the team.


    Queens activist Charles Vavruska works as a part time education director for City Council Member Robert Holden, and Carranza supporters are calling on the councilman to rein him in.

    This is a low even for Council-member Holden.

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-council-member-staffer-demonstrates-against-carranza-20190809-uftgcnvi6ram7arn44edg2x5qa-story.html

    UPDATE: Police statement

    “All evidence in the investigation into this incident thus far shows that the person in the video was not actually struck,” she said in an email. “The report by the school safety agent on the scene of this incident says that a protestor pushed past another school safety agent, raised his foot in front of the Chancellor’s vehicle bumper, and then threw himself to the ground. The protestor immediately got back up and continued to protest, including running after the vehicle as it slowly moved away. No injuries were reported at the time, and the school safety agent stated that the protester “simulated” that he was struck by the vehicle. If any party has any additional information regarding this event, they are encouraged to share it with the NYPD.”

    NYPD Statement

    https://www.qchron.com/editions/queenswide/protester-claims-hit-by-carranza-s-doe-car-pressing-charges/article_43ebdec4-bae1-11e9-871b-af382d760052.html

  • Foes of de Blasio’s high school integration plan spent close to $1M to quash it

    The Education Equity Campaign, a pro-test coalition which launched in February to counter the mayor’s plan, hired top firms Tusk Strategies, Bolton St. Johns and Patrick B. Jenkins & Associates to the tune of $80,000 total in May and June, according to the recent bimonthly filings with th犀利士 e state’s ethics watchdog. Those contracts cost them $65,000, according to filings from the previous March and April period.


    The campaign also dropped $395,000 in April and March on a media campaign that went through Tusk and included $50,000 for video production, $300,000 for digital advocacy, $30,000 for media advocacy and a $15,000 retainer payment to Bully Pulpit Interactive, a communications agency for brands, causes and candidates. That deal cost them $320,000 for the May and June period. The total pricetag for just Education Equity was roughly $860,000.

    https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2019/07/18/foes-of-de-blasios-high-school-integration-plan-spent-close-to-1m-to-quash-it-1108099

  • Big Money Enters Debate Over Race and Admissions at Stuyvesant

    Follow the money they typically say.

    Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir, and Richard D. Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup, have for decades had their hands in New York City affairs. Mr. Lauder ran a failed bid for mayor and successfully led a campaign for term limits for local elected officials. Mr. Parsons has been a prominent adviser to two mayors.


    Now, they are teaming up to try to influence one of the city’s most intractable and divisive debates: how to address the lack of black and Hispanic students at Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and the other elite public high schools that use a test to determine admission.


    Mr. Lauder this week announced that he was financing a multimillion-dollar lobbying, public relations and advertising effort called the Education Equity Campaign, whose immediate goal is to ensure that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to eliminate the entrance exam does not pass the State Legislature, people involved in the effort said.

    […]

    Tusk Strategies, a political strategy firm with close ties to Mr. Bloomberg, said it was orchestrating the effort for a fee of between $50,000 and $150,000 a month.


    Also on the payroll are Albany lobbying firms, including Patrick B. Jenkins & Associates and Bolton St.-Johns, known for their connections to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration and the State Legislature, respectively.


    The group’s board of advisers, who are also being compensated, includes education experts who have supported Mr. Bloomberg’s accountability-driven brand of education reform.


    The public face of the campaign, the Rev. Kirsten John Foy, whose civil rights organization is receiving a contribution for its involvement, is a prominent minister and a Sharpton ally. The campaign is planning to spend at least $1 million on advertisements alone. Neither the website nor the ads bear any mention of Mr. Lauder or Mr. Parsons.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/nyregion/specialized-high-schools-lobbying.html

  • Billionaire joins push to stop de Blasio’s high school admissions test plan

    Powerful specialized high school alumni have now promised to put MILLIONS into lobbying against replacing the embattled 114 multiple-choice exam as the sole admissions criteria for these schools.

    Cosmetics tycoon Ron Lauder is bankrolling a multimillion-dollar effort to stop Mayor Bill de Blasio from eliminating the admissions test to the city’s top high schools, sources told The Post on Monday.


    The billionaire Clinique chairman — a 1961 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science— is prepared to spend at least “seven figures” of his personal fortune on TV commercials and other efforts to block de Blasio’s controversial proposal, sources said.


    The campaign will target Albany lawmakers, whom the mayor needs to amend a 1971 state law that created the Specialized High School Admission Test — and may even include attack ads against de Blasio, one source said.


    In an email sent to his friends Monday morning — and obtained by The Post — Lauder said he was “joining a new effort called the Education Equity Campaign to achieve the goal of creating new Specialized High Schools” and “will be helping this campaign however I can.”

    https://nypost.com/2019/04/22/billionaire-joins-push-to-stop-de-blasios-high-school-admissions-test-plan/

    These millions are on top of the hundreds of thousands alumni already report in lobbying.

  • Stuyvesant’s Admissions-Test Backers Hire Lobbyist

    How your government actually works…

    Stanley Ng, one of the founders of the “Scholastic Merit Fund,” said Thursday it had raised $25,000 this fall and hopes to raise $100,000 by January to protect the 1971 law that mandates the admissions test for at least three of the eight specialized high schools.

    […]

    The fund hired lobbying firm Parkside Group, LLC for $60,000 from Oct. 2 through Sept. 30, 2019, plus certain expenses, according to a filing with the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics. One of Parkside Group’s lobbyists is Evan Stavisky, who went to one of the specialized schools, Bronx High School of Science.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/stuyvesants-admissions-test-backers-hire-lobbyist-1541112407

    Digging further we see the Parkside Group runs many Democrat Legislature Campaigns.

    “There ought to be a cooling off period before political consultants can lobby the very elected officials whose campaigns they ran,” said Camarda. “There is a great deal of public cynicism about government these days, and arrangements like these undermine people’s confidence that government officials are making decisions in the public interest.”

    MirRam Group, run by one of its founders, Luis Manuel Miranda, is not the only group that dabbles in both campaign management and lobbying. The Parkside Group is one of the largest similar groups. This year, it worked on the campaigns of Rep. Joe Crowley and State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins along with lobbying for state interest groups like developers and unions.

    http://www.gothamgazette.com/state/7993-close-ties-among-bronx-electeds-campaign-consultants-lobbyists-and-donors