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.

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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 the 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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