Pushback from New Rochelle School Board & Teachers Union. Same Old Argument Against School Choice
By Dan Murphy
Most school districts in Westchester County do not presently have the apparent need, nor the apparent interest, in a public charter school in their community. That is because most of the school districts in Westchester are in affluent communities where student achievement is well-funded and supported by parents and staff in ordinary local neighborhood schools.
But in some Westchester communities where academic achievement is below par, the debate over
charter schools continues. Charter schools have opened in Yonkers and Mt. Vernon in recent years. The Charter School for Educational Excellence, CSEE, in Yonkers, continues to have a waiting list of more than 300 parents who want their children to attend. CSEE recently opened a high school in Yonkers.
Westchester’s third largest city is New Rochelle, which does not currently have a public charter school.
A group of educators, parents and residents has applied to the NYS Department of Education to create
the MSLT Academy Public Charter school in New Rochelle. Should the submission succeed, the school would open at the location of the former Holy Family School, 85 Clove Road in the fall of 2025.
The proposed charter school in New Rochelle has been met with opposition from CSDNR (the New
Rochelle school district), the teachers’ union and other interest groups that oppose the idea of public
charter schools across the state. A recent public information meeting was held at the New Rochelle
Library after a permit for the auditorium and unhampered access for attendees was issued to the MSLT
group. Several protestors held commercially printed signs which read “Charters are Not Accountable,”
and attempted to disrupt the meeting.
The founder of the proposed MSLT Academy (Math, Science, Language and Technology) is Ivan
Green, an adjunct professor at Iona University, and principal of St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy
in Brooklyn. Green began the process of applying for a Charter from NYSED when he began to see a decline in student performance in the New Rochelle school district, and specifically, in the STEM learning categories.
“Graduates of our K-12 primary and secondary schools face sharp competition for college placement
and career-employment from the nation’s finest talent and that of Asia, Africa, Europe and the rest of the
world,” says Prof. Green. “After notable past success, our city school system is currently facing widespread student desertions and departures.”
Others have cited a decline in performance on competitive test results and disciplinary challenges in
the NR school district as examples of a need for a charter school. Dr. Green’s new educational model, with a comprehensive and doctrinal emphasis on math, technology, science, and the arts, will “actualize individual student dreams and inspire public school success as well.” In addition, MSLT will support all students, including those with special needs, by exposure to hands-on introductory courses in art, mechanics, cuisine and meal catering, architecture, and technical drawing at the middle school level.
Asked what motivated him to bring this new public teaching model to New Rochelle, Professor Green
was emphatic: “Everybody in education today exalts student achievement, instructional excellence and
fostering equity among minority students with access to resources at all levels of their educational jour
ney. Well, I do too. Two years ago, I decided to do something about it; something new to New Rochelle
and much of Westchester County: primary and secondary instruction regularly and concretely monitored
and compared to the founders’ established objectives of the smallest measurable entity or teaching sub
ject: school, grade, classroom, or individual student.”
“I think we have found it; A public charter school operating within an existing district; offering to
parents and kids more specialized teaching, focused on the individual student’s needs. It may be viewed
as educationally competitive – but it is cooperative-competition, moderated and modulated by a devoted
school team; competition with a heart,” said Green.
“A public charter school also has the benefit of directing our state educational expenditures to where
the consumers – client-customer parents, and students – want it. Stated Professor Green, “It is the best
example of public-school choice available in New York: ‘The money follows the student’.”
He concluded, “As a society, consumer-choice has become a true expression of democratic-republican
values. We accept it as a regular feature of our cultural and commercial lives. ‘Choice’ is offered by those
bidding for our patronage, from consumer goods and automobiles, to university education and online
instruction. Why should New Rochelle K-12 education be any different?”
At inception, MSLT will provide a more concentrated curriculum in STEM (science, technology, en
gineering, math) subjects than available presently, along with appropriate instruction in languages, the
arts and physical fitness.
District families will be able to apply to a lottery for eligibility for the school’s first classes. The only
determinant will be “chance”: Student-family private influence and lobbying to school administrators
will have no consequence. The average class size is proposed to contain 25 students – totaling approxi
mately 300 to 400 seats.
MSLT Academy Public Charter School will be held to similar, yet even stricter standards governing
the New Rochelle school district, set forth by the New York State Department of Education.
Dr. Green has recruited an eclectic array of institutional advisors and mentors to MSLT. His team can
boast of a combined 180+ years’ experience, training and “plainwisdom!” (he emphasized) in science,
languages, special needs, and mechanical and craft arts, school administration, commerce and industry,
community activism, charitable enterprise and pedagogical theory and practice.
A list of the Board and advisors for MSLT can be found at MSLTacademy.org. Parents and students
interested in applying to MSLT Academy Public Charter School’s first classes are invited to contact Dr.
Green. Email info@msltacademy.org
Some clarifications about Charter schools include:
I-Charter schools are “accountable”: The application process for a Charter school is thorough and con
ducted by the NYS Education Department. Charters are given by NYSED for five years, after which the
schools must undergo another comprehensive review by NYSED resulting in: a rating of “succeeded,” a
detailed menu of corrections required, or; possibility of recommended facility closure.
II-Charter School are not anti-union. The teaching body will be free to vote for any collective bargain
ing unit of their choice, and many existing charter school have unions representing their teachers.
III-Charter schools are not private schools: Charter schools in New York State are funded with the tax
dollars from the school district in which the public charter school is located. Charter schools cannot be
“for profit” and are prohibited from any form of private ownership by the New York State legislation that
created them in 1998 (Incidentally, former Governor George Pataki and a bi-partisan group of legisla
tors, educators and parents and families recently observed the 25th anniversary of the law’s passage).
One of the arguments against public charter schools is that they take money away from ordinary,
neighborhood public schools – in this case the New Rochelle school district.
But the reality is that public charter schools do more for less. The per-student allocations of tax dollars
are less than for neighborhood public schools, while overall, in test results and general student measures,
charter schools exceed the regular local schools in academic achievement.
This has always been the central theme for our interest, and support of public charter schools. It makes
sense for the taxpayer, and it provides parents with a choice. We wonder what parents in other school
districts would want if their children went to an underperforming school. Wouldn’t you want the same
choice to go to a public charter school? This is the choice that Dr. Green and the MSLT Academy are try
ing to provide in New Rochelle.
There are currently 94 public charter schools in the Bronx. Westchester currently has four charter institutions.
