Assembly Actions - Lowercase Senate Actions - UPPERCASE |
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Jul 08, 2020 | referred to education |
Archive: Last Bill Status - In Assembly Committee
- Introduced
- In Committee
- On Floor Calendar
- Passed Senate
- Passed Assembly
- Delivered to Governor
- Signed/Vetoed by Governor
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Actions
Co-Sponsors
Charles Barron
Michael Blake
Harvey Epstein
Jo Anne Simon
A10731 (ACTIVE) - Details
A10731 (ACTIVE) - Bill Text download pdf
S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K ________________________________________________________________________ 10731 I N A S S E M B L Y July 8, 2020 ___________ Introduced by COMMITTEE ON RULES -- (at request of M. of A. Mosley, Barron, Blake, Epstein, Simon, Wright) -- read once and referred to the Committee on Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to admission to the specialized high schools in the city of New York THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM- BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: Section 1. Legislative findings. Since the enactment of the Hecht-Ca- landra Act in 1971, the New York city school district has not been able to make decisions about admissions to its specialized high schools. Instead, as a result of the Hecht-Calandra Act, the city school district has been required to base admission decisions to its specialized high schools on only one criterion for admission - a student's performance on a single standardized exam. As a result of the use of this criterion, known as the specialized high school admissions test (SHSAT), the student population of the specialized high schools does not reflect the diversity of the City's population. Whereas the overall percentage of Black and Latino students in the city's public schools is approximately sixty-seven percent, Black and Latino students only represent nine percent of the population of the specialized schools. This disparity hurts Black and Latino students and it also harms the students who attend the specialized high schools, who do not reap the intellectual, emotional and social benefits from learning in a more diverse environ- ment. Furthermore, the city school district is alone in its reliance on a single metric to make admission decisions. Universities across the country consider multiple factors when selecting their incoming student body; selective institutions do not rely on the results of a single exam. It is time for the city school district to follow suit and for admissions to no longer be based on the procedures prescribed in the Hecht-Calandra Act. This legislation will allow the city school district to develop its own admissions criteria for specialized high schools, as it develops admissions criteria for other schools within the district, and ensure that high-performing and talented students across all five boroughs have the opportunity to attend its specialized high schools. EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets