China Overseas Chinese Network, July 13th, according to the US "World Daily" report, several New York State House of Representatives recently proposed to repeal the "Calandra-Hecht Act" bill in the state parliament. Once the bill is repealed, special high schools will no longer be competitive and The academic test is the only admission standard, and the special high school reform right will be transferred from the governor to the mayor and the director of education. The New York Society of New York, which has always supported SHSAT, issued a statement against the proposal on the 10th and called on everyone to write to their respective states. Members, ask them to vote against the proposal.
Proposal A10731 was proposed by State Rep. Walter Mosley on the 8th. Co-sponsors include State Rep. Charles Barron, Michael Blake, etc. who have always opposed SHSAT; the proposal requires its repeal The "Calandra-Hecht Act" bill lifts the state government's control of admission to New York City's special high schools and transfers the authority to the New York City Council to ensure that the City Council will gradually abolish SHSAT by 2022 and introduce a new admission plan.
Barron said they did not ask for any new policies, but only hoped that the state capital would no longer be caught in the vortex of special high school reforms; in recent years he had repeatedly failed to pass the proposal, and the recent incident of George Floyd let everyone With increasing awareness of the rights of African Americans, Barron said that combating systemic discrimination should be carried out from all aspects, and now is the best time to propose again.
The New York State House passed the "Calandra-Hecht Act" in 1971, which sets competitive and academic tests as the only admission criteria for special high schools. Previously, Education Director Richard Carranza had repeatedly stated that the bill was ridiculous. The other five states where he worked have never seen a similar bill, believing that single-standard admission has led to serious uneven distribution of ethnicity among students in special high schools.
Since June 2018, New York City Mayors Bill de Blasio and Calanza proposed a special high school admission reform plan, requesting the abolition of SHSAT and dividing the admission quota among the top 7% students in each public junior high school in the city. The group's response to the plan was mixed. Bai Sihao also for the first time in September 2019 was relieved from insisting on abolishing SHSAT.
The New York Consortium issued a statement on the 10th, stating that the proposal again attacked SHSAT, calling on those who support SHSAT to send emails to state legislators in their respective constituencies, requesting a negative vote on the proposal. (Jin Chunxiang)