New Jersey鈥檚 education department approved the renewal of five charter schools in Newark and the expansion of two schools, but denied an enrollment expansion for KIPP TEAM Academy in the South Ward after the city鈥檚 public school district raised objections.

Kevin Dehmer, the state鈥檚 education commissioner, renewed Great Oaks Legacy, LEAD, Robert Treat Academy, North Star Academy, and TEAM Academy charter schools to operate for the next five years, through Jan. 30, 2031, according to charter school decision letters obtained by Chalkbeat from the state education department.

Robert Treat Academy, with campuses in the North and Central wards, and North Star Academy, part of the Uncommon Schools network across Newark, received approval to boost their enrollment by the 2030-31 school year, but the state blocked TEAM Academy鈥檚 request to add just over 1,000 seats by 2030-31.

Kevin Dehmer, the state鈥檚 education commissioner, sent charter school decision letters on Jan. 16, before Gov. Mikie Sherrill was sworn in. The letters were sent to schools statewide that sought renewals or amendments to their charter agreements, including requests to renew charter applications, add a grade level, or increase seats. The education department evaluates requests by reviewing a charter school鈥檚 academic, operational, and fiscal standing, outlined by state guidelines.

State laws allow charter schools to be renewed for a maximum of five years, but signed this month, the education commissioner can grant 10-year renewals to charter schools that meet high-performing standards.

This year, 22 charter school requests were approved statewide, including the five in Newark. New Jersey renewed charter agreements for schools in Jersey City, Paterson, Hoboken, and Camden, and denied the expansion of Thomas Edison EnergySmart School in Somerset. Overall, nine charter school enrollment expansions were approved across the state.

The decisions charter school determinations made under former Gov. Phil Murphy to approve charter schools and deny expansions. Sherrill has not explicitly stated her plans for charter schools in New Jersey, but during , she generally opposed expanding school choice through vouchers or new charter schools. She has said she would support expanding the state鈥檚 program.

Newark Public Schools Superintendent Roger Leon asked the state to renew TEAM Academy鈥檚 charter without an enrollment expansion, citing the 鈥渇iscal impact鈥� on the district, according to the state letter. Leon alleged that 鈥渢he school does not enroll a proportional share of multilingual learners and students with disabilities,鈥� according to a letter he submitted.

Leon also opposed expansions for North Star Academy and Robert Treat Academy, citing the same reasons.

The charter school decisions come as Leon continues to reclaim Newark public school buildings lost under the state鈥檚 25-year takeover of the district. He has vowed to slow the spread of charter schools in the city. In 2024, the district that forced People鈥檚 Preparatory Charter School out of the Bard Early College High School. with Achieve Community Charter School to create a new K-12 school called BRICK Gateway Academy.

Newark Public Schools opposes charter school expansion

Founded in 2002, TEAM Academy was the first school operated by KIPP, a national charter network, in Newark. The school enrolls grades five through eight and requested to expand enrollment from 7,920 seats to 9,010 seats by the 2030-31 school year, according to its state decision letter this year.

After reviewing the school鈥檚 academic, organizational, and financial performance, the state found that TEAM Academy partially met standards in board capacity, school climate and culture, and access and equity. According to annual reports submitted to the state, the charter school board had not conducted formal evaluations. The board is expected to complete them during the next five years, according to the state letter.

The school also reported a 17% out-of-school suspension rate for school years 2021-22 through 2023-24, during which several kindergarten through second grade students received out-of-school suspension each year, the state letter read.

State officials said the high number of suspensions created 鈥渟ignificant concerns鈥� in the school鈥檚 ability to adhere to state law, which restricts out-of-school suspensions for those grade levels, TEAM Academy鈥檚 decision letter stated.

But the state found the charter school met standards in educating students with disabilities and multilingual learners, contradicting Leon鈥檚 allegations. TEAM Academy has roughly 939 students with Individualized Education Programs, with an average of 80 to 90 students with existing IEPs or Section 504 Plans enrolled annually, according to the state letter.

John Abeigon, the president of the Newark Teachers Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and the City Association of Supervisors and Administrators, among other unions and groups, also submitted comments opposing TEAM Academy鈥檚 enrollment expansion.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, along with council members Patrick Council and Anibal Ramos, submitted comments in support of TEAM Academy, expressing support for the charter renewal due to the school鈥檚 鈥渟trong academic record and the educational choice it provides to the Newark community,鈥� according to the state letter.

By the 2030-31 school year, Robert Treat Academy will expand from 860 seats to 1,620 seats, while North Star Academy, with schools in the Central and West Wards, will boost enrollment from 7,792 seats to 8,556 seats after receiving approval this year.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

For nearly two decades, Scott Kern has worked to make history feel more alive for Newark students. He does so through close readings of Fredrick Douglass鈥� Fourth of July speech or, most recently, by weaving artificial intelligence tools into his classroom.

Kern, the AI innovation lead and history department chair at North Star Academy鈥檚 Washington Park High School, teaches AP U.S. history to ninth and 11th graders. He joined North Star in 2007 and has spent the last decade at the charter network鈥檚 Washington Park campus.

Kern didn鈥檛 always envision himself in the classroom. In high school, he enrolled in a world history course instead of orchestra after realizing he had reached his full potential on the violin. That switch set the tone for his career. A standout teacher sparked his fascination for the past and 鈥渟tarted a love affair with history that hasn鈥檛 abated since,鈥� Kern said.

Now, in his 19th year of teaching, Kern reflected on the lessons that shaped him, why his favorite lesson still surprises him every year, and how AI is influencing what happens inside his Newark classroom.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I was certain I would do something with history as a ninth grader. In middle school, I played the violin and was in the orchestra, but it was pretty clear that I had peaked. So I had to meet with my guidance counselor to reconfigure my schedule and replace orchestra. That replacement class happened to be world history. That class and that teacher 鈥� Mr. Bentivegna 鈥� changed my life and started a love affair with history that hasn鈥檛 abated since. I majored in history in college and earned a bachelor of arts, then headed to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in history. One day, when I was at the library working on an esoteric paper for a graduate medieval history class, I started to wonder if this was really what I wanted to do with my life (the answer was 鈥渘o鈥�). I thought about the people who really changed my life and why, and it was my teachers. After that reflection, I finished my master鈥檚 degree, went for yet another master鈥檚 degree, and have been teaching history ever since.

What鈥檚 your favorite lesson to teach and why?

My favorite is our close reading of a portion of Frederick Douglass鈥� Fourth of July speech from 1852. I just love everything about it. You have one of the greatest speakers in American history, invited by a group of abolitionist women in New York to give a speech honoring American independence. I try to transport students there. We picture all of these women sitting in their seats and imagining that he is going to thank them and deliver this soaring speech about the Fourth of July and instead, it鈥檚 an excoriation. Abolitionists in 1852 are losing 鈥� America has just passed a fugitive slave law that endangers all African Americans, including Douglass himself, and slavery is becoming increasingly entrenched in American society.

We zoom out to consider Douglass鈥檚 purpose, audience, and word choice. Why would Douglass have come out so intensely in this way? Was this the right message for this audience at this moment in history? What can this tell us about how leaders of social movements try to effect change?

Students are absolutely enthralled every year. We only read a few paragraphs, but they always find something new that surprises. It鈥檚 a reminder that history is complicated and beautiful and that we need to bring it to life for students.

What鈥檚 something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom?

Artificial Intelligence is affecting Newark and pretty much every other community in America. I鈥檝e been using AI tools with students for the last two years, such as custom chatbots that I鈥檝e built to help students revise their writing and or debate ideas before class discussions.

The results so far have been really encouraging. Last year, I had my highest AP scores and pass rate ever. I鈥檓 also co-teaching an AI literacy class for seniors starting in January and hope to expand it next fall. The goal is not just to teach them how to use these tools, but how to think about them and the world in a humanistic way.

How do you approach news events in your classroom?

We often look at how history echoes the present. Sometimes it鈥檚 in the hook and close of class to engage students in the content and then connect it to broader events that will help them see the trends in history.

When we studied the Douglass speech example from earlier, we started off class with pictures of the American flag 鈥� one at an ICE protest in L.A. and another from a Fourth of July parade. Students reflected on how the symbol of the flag can evoke different meanings depending on the context. That helped students see how Douglass and his audience could experience the same holiday in very different ways.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I was an underachiever and a procrastinator for a long time. Some great teachers tried to pull me along, but it never clicked for me. That experience makes me hyper-aware of students who are capable but aren鈥檛 intrinsically motivated. If my teachers had let me just float in that state, my life would be very different. I鈥檇 like to think I鈥檓 doing the same thing 鈥� trying to nudge students along to reach their potential.

What鈥檚 the best advice you鈥檝e ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

The best advice I ever got was from my father, who encouraged me to be committed to whatever I chose to do. That has framed much of my life since. I knew I wasn鈥檛 going to be the smartest or the fastest at anything, but I could control my effort. Over time, I was determined to commit to things and try to out-hustle everyone else. Teaching isn鈥檛 a competition, but it has required extraordinary levels of commitment over the years. I credit my father for instilling that drive in me.

What鈥檚 one thing you鈥檝e read that has made you a better educator?

Reading Zaretta Hammond鈥檚 鈥淐ulturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain鈥� felt like a strong pedagogical approach to teaching that I believed in and had seen in class. Her explanation of how the brain鈥檚 amygdala shuts down when threatened makes higher-order learning nearly impossible. When students feel threatened, their brains shut off the ability to do meaningful learning. It spoke to me deeply and reinforced my belief that a physically and intellectually safe environment is important for meaningful learning.

How do you take care of yourself when you鈥檙e not at work?

Friends and family are my priority outside of work. We have family rituals that keep me grounded. Family dinner at the table with no devices is obligatory except on Friday, which is movie night. We spread a blanket on the floor for our kids, and we have dinner and a movie together. I also try to get together with a group of friends at least once a week, usually to play board games. I love that board games bring people together in an analog way that promotes dialogue and human connection.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

New Jersey鈥檚 largest school system will receive nearly half a million dollars in new federal funding to strengthen reading instruction and engage families in literacy as part of a first-year $13.6 million initiative announced this week by the state鈥檚 Education Department.

Two grants will support Newark Public Schools鈥� literacy work, with $400,000 to update instructional materials and train teachers in evidence-based practices and $60,000 to create home-based literacy programs for parents and children under age 3.

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鈥淟iteracy is the tool that unlocks the opportunities education creates for our students. These grant awards will help sustain our efforts to infuse best practices into classrooms across our state, uplifting our school communities with crucial tools and resources,鈥� said Gov. Phil Murphy in a Wednesday.

The new investments come as Newark continues to face challenges in helping students recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across Newark, less than 40% of the city鈥檚 traditional public and charter school students scored proficient in English language arts last year, and just under 24% did so in math, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of .

This year, 34% of students in Newark Public Schools passed the English language arts test, while 21.1% passed math, according to the district鈥檚 overview of .

The state Education Department has not yet released statewide scores for this year, which will include the latest charter school results.

The new literacy funding comes from the federal Comprehensive Literacy State Development grants, a $50 million investment to be used over five years. The grants, which will be disbursed by the state Education Department, will build upon the , the state鈥檚 new plan to refine literacy practices in schools.

That framework requires schools across the state this year to start new training on reading instruction for prekindergarten-6 staff, implement literacy screenings for students in K-3, and create reading intervention plans.

The district has said it , an AI-powered literacy screener, to help identify students who may be struggling to read, as part of the framework.

Newark charter schools also received literacy funding from the state鈥檚 new grant.

Marion P. Thomas Charter School and Philip鈥檚 Academy Charter School received $150,000 and $124,999, respectively, to hire literacy coaches.

Marion P. Thomas also received $50,000, while Discovery Charter School got $20,000, to expand reading intervention for middle and high school students.

For Newark, the new grants could mean more support for teachers and families working to help students learn to read.

School leaders in Newark identified early literacy as a key part of the city鈥檚 academic recovery plan post-pandemic. In 2023, Mayor Ras Baraka declared an urgent literacy crisis in Newark and The city鈥檚 its summer school and tutoring programs and adopted an and charter schools 鈥� to provide high-dosage tutoring in math and reading.

Superintendent Roger Le贸n has previously said that federal dollars were the district鈥檚 in expanding academic recovery programs, including high-impact tutoring, a research-based practice with three or more sessions per week with the same tutor in small group settings.

Le贸n has also said district teachers are providing that type of tutoring as a way to support academic recovery, but more details about those efforts have not been shared publicly.

In a statement, Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz, whose district includes Newark, said she hopes that the new grants can improve classroom instruction by taking 鈥渁 holistic approach to strengthening literacy 鈥� training educators to deliver effective instruction, equipping schools with evidence-based resources, and fostering meaningful familial connections through reading at home.鈥�

Michael Duffy, president of GO Tutor Corps, a nonprofit that partners with schools in New Jersey and across the country to provide high-impact tutoring, said in a recent interview with Chalkbeat that tutoring works but added that 鈥渢he question isn鈥檛 whether high-dosage tutoring can move the needle for kids, it鈥檚 who has access to it.鈥�

Liz Cohen, vice president of policy at 50can and author of a new book, 鈥淭he Future of Tutoring,鈥� said academic recovery efforts should no longer be viewed as a short-term pandemic solution but should shape education long-term.

鈥淚t鈥檚 less about recovering now and it鈥檚 more about what do we want education to look like in the 21st century and going forward,鈥� Cohen said.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Newark Public Schools will pay over $300 million over 30 years for its new trade high school 鈥� but after many delays, the gym and auditorium may not be finished when it opens this fall.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is expected to welcome students in September, per an amended lease agreement that extended the deal from 20 to 30 years and was approved by the district鈥檚 Board of Education last month. But the deadline for the developer to finish those parts of the school isn鈥檛 until the middle of 2026.

The district also has the option to purchase the building for $1,000 at the end of the 30-year lease, according to the revised agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

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The amended lease agreement comes after the developer of the property and Summit Assets CEO Albert Nigri would be finished by the start of the upcoming school year.

When the lease for the new trade high school was first signed by the district in 2021, NPS agreed to a $160 million, 20-year lease. The following year, Superintendent Roger Le贸n in the city鈥檚 East Ward at an invite-only groundbreaking ceremony. He touted the school 鈥� the first of its kind in the district 鈥� as an opportunity for students to fast-track their technical careers and earn a contract to work with the district.

It was originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2022. But issued by the state鈥檚 Department of Labor and Workforce Development over wage complaints and changes in contractors have delayed the project.

The district鈥檚 communications director Paul Brubaker did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat about the project鈥檚 setbacks, how the district plans to pay the lease for the school, or its reasoning for extending the lease agreement. Nigri did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is set to focus on three trades 鈥� plumbing, electricity, and HVAC 鈥� and allow students to study architecture and interior design. The curriculum will also give students a high school diploma and a license for trade work, district officials have previously said.

The new school is housed at the former St. James Hospital building that has stood vacant for years in the middle of the city鈥檚 Ironbound neighborhood. When it opens, the school will enroll 240 ninth grade students and add a grade level each year. Payments to Nigri, the property鈥檚 landlord and developer, are set to begin when the school opens this fall.

New high school delayed amid pay complaints

The latest version of the amended lease, approved by the school board in May, includes two new deadlines for the completion of the school.

By Aug. 1, 2025, the base of the school building must be completed, which includes new walls, roofs, and windows, elevators, restrooms, a courtyard, and landscaping. By June 1, 2026, the newly constructed gym and auditorium must be completed and the building must be finished, according to the lease amendment.

Those deadlines are later than those in approved by NPS in August 2024, which were for the base of the school building to be completed by Jan. 9, the new gym and auditorium to be finished by July 30, and the building to be completed by Sept. 1.

The amended lease also extends the deal from 20 to 30 years and bumps up the total lease to $295,979,990 over 30 years. The district must also pay a total of $20 million in additional payments to Nigri between year two and year six and year 26 and year 30 of the lease.

Union workers at the high school鈥檚 construction site also encountered poor working conditions that were making their jobs unsafe and many were being paid late or in cash. That resulted in the union filing wage complaints with the state.

In September 2022, the New Jersey Department of Labor issued stop-work orders to Summit Assets as well as the former general contractor and an ex-subcontractor. That order halted work on the site for months before Nigri hired a new contractor and subcontractor.

Days later, dozens of union workers demanding that Le贸n intervene after they were forced out of work and owed pay. Le贸n addressed laborers鈥� complaints and reiterated the district鈥檚 plan to open the school in September 2023.

, the Department of Labor issued a second stop-work order on the site and to the new contractors and subcontractors of the project. Although the work subsequently resumed, district leaders have not addressed the project鈥檚 delays or issues related to worker pay.

Instead, the district began to advertise a fall 2025 opening date, and this spring, it opened up enrollment to the school. Brubaker did not respond to a request for comment about the district鈥檚 contingency plan if the landlord fails to deliver part of the building by Aug. 1.

State remains responsible for new school construction in Newark

on the project, former assistant school business administrator Jason Ballard said that leasing a high school building is more affordable than building a new high school, which he said costs an average of $134 million. That鈥檚 less than half of what the district will pay on its lease for the new trade school, based on construction plans in other New Jersey cities.

The Schools Development Authority is the state agency responsible for paying construction projects in Newark and 30 other low-income school districts. According to its , the cost per square foot for a high school project was $369 at that time.

The agency鈥檚 largest and most expensive construction project is , which opened its doors last fall and cost $284 million to add room for nearly 3,300 students.

Over the years, the agency has promised the district it would pay for school repairs and provide new buildings. But despite efforts to address these challenges, including the allocation of $18 million in state funding for building upgrades over the last three fiscal years, the district estimates that it would need more than $2 billion to repair and update all schools.

The Newark school district has identified 33 out of its 64 total schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations. The state agency last summer promised to replace , but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need replacements. The state agency also said it would spend a new University High School and relocate Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, but the plan is still in its early stages.

In 2023, the Schools Development Authority purchased the former University Heights Charter School building and transferred it to the district to fulfill its promise to provide a new elementary school, now known as the

This story was originally by Chalkbeat,聽a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

On a recent Thursday morning, Michael Taubman asked his class of seniors at North Star Academy鈥檚 Washington Park High School: 鈥淲hat do you think AI鈥檚 role should be in your future career?鈥�

鈥淚n school, like how we use AI as a tool and we don鈥檛 use it to cheat on our work 鈥� that鈥檚 how it should be, like an assistant,鈥� said Amirah Falana, a 17-year-old interested in a career in real estate law.

Fernando Infante, an aspiring software developer, agreed that AI should be a tool to 鈥減rovide suggestions鈥� and inform the work.

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鈥淚t鈥檚 like having AI as a partner rather than it doing the work,鈥� said Infante during class.

Falana and Infante are students in Taubman鈥檚 class called The Summit, a yearlong program offered to 93 seniors this year and expanding to juniors next year that also includes a 10-week AI course developed by Taubman and Stanford University.

As part of the course, students use artificial intelligence tools 鈥� often viewed in a negative light due to privacy and other technical concerns 鈥� to explore their career interests and better understand how technology could shape the workforce. The class is also timely, as 92% of companies plan to invest in more AI over the next three years, according to a report by global consulting firm

The lessons provide students with hands-on exercises to better understand how AI works and how they can use it in their daily lives. They are also designed so teachers across subject areas can include them as part of their courses and help high school students earn a Google Career Certificate for AI Essentials, which introduces AI and teaches the basics of using AI tools.

Students like Infante have used the AI and coding skills they learned in class to create their own apps while others have used them to create school surveys and spark new thoughts about their future careers. Taubman says the goal is to also give students agency over AI so they can embrace technological changes and remain competitive in the workfield.

鈥淥ne of the key things for young people right now is to make sure they understand that this technology is not inevitable,鈥� Taubman told Chalkbeat last month. 鈥淧eople made this, people are making decisions about it, and there are pros and cons like with everything people make and we should be talking about this.鈥�

Students need to know the basics of AI, experts say

As Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, graduate high school and enter a workforce where AI is new, many are wondering how the technology will be used and to what extent.

Nearly half of Gen Z students polled by The Walton Family Foundation and Gallup said they , according to the newly released survey exploring how youth view AI. (The Walton Family Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat. See our funders list聽.) The same poll found that over 4 in 10 Gen Z students believe they will need to know AI in their future careers, and over half believe schools should be required to teach them how to use it.

This school year, Newark Public Schools students began using , which the district launched as a pilot program last year. Some Newark teachers reported that the tutoring tool was helpful in the classroom, but the district has not released data on whether it helped raise student performance and test scores. The district in 2024 also launched its multimillion across school buildings in an attempt to keep students safe.

But more than just using AI in school, students want to feel prepared to use it after graduating high school. Nearly 3 in 4 college students said their colleges or universities should be preparing them for AI in the workplace, from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse鈥檚 Student Voice series.

Many of the challenges of using AI in education center on the type of learning approach used, accuracy, and building trust with the technology, said Nhon Ma, CEO of 鈥� an online learning assistant that uses AI and educators to help students learn STEM concepts. But that鈥檚 why it鈥檚 important to immerse students in AI to help them understand the ways it could be used and when to spot issues, Ma added.

鈥淲e want to prepare our youth for this competitive world stage, especially on the technological front so they can build their own competence and confidence in their future paths. That could potentially lead towards higher earnings for them too,鈥� Ma said.

For Infante, the senior in Taubman鈥檚 class, AI has helped spark a love for computer science and deepened his understanding of coding. He used it to create an app that tracks personal milestones and goals and awards users with badges once they reach them. As an aspiring software developer, he feels he has an advantage over other students because he鈥檚 learning about AI in high school.

Taubman also says it鈥檚 especially important for students to understand how quickly the technology is advancing, especially for students like Infante looking towards a career in technology.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 really important to help young people grapple with how this is new, but unlike other big new things, the pace is very fast, and the implications for career are almost immediate in a lot of cases,鈥� Taubman added.

Students learn that human emotions are important as AI grows

It鈥檚 also important to remember the limitations of AI, Taubman said, noting that students need the basic understanding of how AI works in order to question it, identify any mistakes, and use it accordingly in their careers.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want students to lose out on an internship or job because someone else knows how to use AI better than they do, but what I really want is for students to get the internship or the job because they鈥檙e skillful with AI,鈥� Taubman said.

Through Taubman鈥檚 class, students are also identifying how AI increases the demand for skills that require human emotion, such as empathy and ethics.

Daniel Akinyele, a 17-year-old senior, said he was interested in a career in industrial and organizational psychology, which focuses on human behavior in the workplace.

During Taubman鈥檚 class, he used a custom AI tool on his laptop to explore different scenarios where he could use AI in his career. Many involved talking to someone about their feelings or listening to vocal cues that might indicate a person is sad or angry. Ultimately, psychology is a career about human connection and 鈥渢hat鈥檚 where I come into play,鈥� Akinyele said.

鈥淚鈥檓 human, so I would understand how people are feeling, like the emotion that AI doesn鈥檛 see in people鈥檚 faces, I would see it and understand it,鈥� Akinyele added.

Falana, the aspiring real estate attorney, also used the custom AI tool to consider how much she should rely on AI when writing legal documents. Similar to writing essays in schools, Falana said professionals should use their original writing in their work but AI could serve as a launching pad.

鈥淚 feel like the legal field should definitely put regulations on AI use, like we shouldn鈥檛 be able to, draw up our entire case using AI,鈥� Falana said.

During Taubman鈥檚 class, students also discussed fake images and videos created by AI. Infante, who wants to be a software developer, added that he plans to use AI regularly on the job but believes it should also be regulated to limit disinformation online.

Taubman says it鈥檚 important for students to have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to new technologies. He encourages students to think about how AI generates images, the larger questions around copyright infringement, and their training processes.

鈥淲e really want them to feel like they have agency in this world, both their capacity to use these systems,鈥� Taubman said, 鈥渂ut also to ask these broader questions about how they were designed.鈥�

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.聽Sign up for their newsletters at .

Jennie Demizio, a special education teacher at Park Elementary School in Newark, stood in a crowd full of dozens of educators and union members and listened to speakers talk about the Trump administration鈥檚 threats to cut funding for education.

One by one, speakers listed the potential impacts of federal cuts on programs at New Jersey鈥檚 universities and colleges, health care, and research. Protesters yelled 鈥渟hame鈥� and 鈥渂oo鈥� after speakers detailed the effects of funding cuts on schools.

After the rally on Tuesday, Demizio held back tears and her voice cracked as she told Chalkbeat Newark how her students with disabilities rely on federal funding to get to school and for services such as speech therapy and classroom aides.

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鈥淗alf of my students arrive in ambulances. They鈥檙e on oxygen, they have seizure disorders, and just their transportation alone to get to school costs thousands of dollars a year,鈥� said Demizio as her voice cracked while holding back tears. 鈥淚鈥檓 just so worried we鈥檙e going to lose this funding.鈥�

Demizio鈥檚 fears echo those of many educators in Newark and across the state who feel that students will lose essential resources because of the administration鈥檚 threats to education. The protesters hope school districts, higher education institutions, and local leaders will band together to fight looming cuts and protect students and staff.

The protest in Newark was part of the 鈥溾�� demonstration, a national day of action with protests in over 30 cities across the country. About 50 city educators and labor unions gathered in front of a bust of John F. Kennedy at Military Park on the windy Tuesday afternoon, where they held signs that read 鈥渉ands off my students鈥� and chanted 鈥渟tand up, fight back.鈥�

The protest in Newark centered on threats to health care, immigrants, research, and the Trump administration鈥檚 threat to withhold federal funding from school districts and universities that don鈥檛 eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs deemed unlawful by the administration.

Last week, federal officials gave the elimination of DEI efforts in schools or risk losing federal funding. That directive threatens for New Jersey schools, including $77 million for Newark Public Schools, the state鈥檚 largest district. That funding makes up around 5% of the district鈥檚 for the upcoming school year.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no way that municipalities can totally foot that bill,鈥� said Demizio.鈥淚鈥檓 in a classroom where there are nurses, aides, and, you know, I think I feel like special education teachers, especially, are vulnerable at this moment.鈥�

Last week鈥檚 attack on DEI programs in schools comes days after federal education officials also announced they would revoke deadline extensions to spend federal COVID aid that had been approved by the Biden administration.

As a result, 20 school districts across New Jersey could lose an additional $85 million in federal funding for infrastructure projects already in progress. That includes Newark Public Schools, which was to finish installing artificial intelligence cameras last fall. Paul Brubaker, the district鈥檚 director of communications, did not respond to questions about the status of the district鈥檚 AI cameras project or budget plans if federal funds are cut.

For Shelby Wardlaw, a professor and vice president of non-tenure track faculty at Rutgers University, the attacks feel personal. International students are worried about getting their visas revoked, and immigrant students fear they might be targeted due to their legal status, Wardlaw said.

In recent days, roughly a dozen Rutgers students 鈥渋n good academic standing鈥� learned their visas were revoked 鈥渨ithout explanation,鈥� according to from Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway. Across the country, international students and recent graduates have had their legal status changed by the federal government.

Additionally, some Rutgers faculty members are concerned about cuts to DEI initiatives and the impact that could have on teaching and learning.

Melissa Rodgers, a professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, spoke to the crowd on Tuesday about the devastating effects funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health and anti-DEI initiatives will have on medical and scientific research. Rodgers, a biomedical professor, has been investigating the impacts of sex on kidney disease, research that鈥檚 now at risk under proposed cuts, Rodgers said.

Wardlaw and her colleagues want Rutgers and other universities in the Big Ten Academic Alliance Conference to band together to share legal resources and funds to combat federal funding threats to higher education. Last month, the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution calling on those universities to form a 鈥淢utual Defense Compact鈥� to protect and defend 鈥渁cademic freedom, institutional integrity and the research enterprise,鈥� according to , Rutgers student-run newspaper.

鈥淯niversities are bastions of knowledge and resistance that would oppose an authoritarian overreach, and they鈥檙e going to come after us first,鈥� Wardlaw told Chalkbeat on Tuesday. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e trying to break us as a potential site of resistance.鈥�

Protesters at the Newark rally also heard from union leaders, civil rights activist Larry Hamm, and gubernatorial candidates Sean Spiller and Mayor Ras Baraka, who urged educators, laborers, and immigrant rights activists to band together to fight federal threats.

鈥淲e must resist,鈥� all three speakers urged the crowd on Tuesday.

鈥淭he same people that were trying to stop [workers] from having fair working conditions and a rise in their wages were the same people who were opposed to ending Jim Crow Laws, opposed to civil rights, and opposed to democracy and justice,鈥� Baraka told protesters.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, also spoke on Tuesday and called the Trump administration鈥檚 move to cancel funding for and $400 million in grants to an assault on education. The AFT is a party to eight lawsuits against the Trump administration鈥檚 attacks on education, access to records, and public health, according to the group.

鈥淲e have young people engage in critical thinking and problem solving so they can discern fact from fiction, so they can stand up for themselves, so they know how to think,鈥� Weingarten said. 鈥淭hat is what we do and what this administration is so fearful about.鈥�

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Rachel Hodge worked as a housekeeper at a hospital and was earning an online degree in social work when schools shut their doors due to COVID. Spending hours in front of a laptop with a 5-year-old just didn鈥檛 fit into the picture.

But in the fall of 2020, her daughter Vanessa was set to start kindergarten at KIPP Upper Roseville Academy in Newark, New Jersey. With Hodge working and school still remote, Vanessa spent her days with a babysitter, who cared for multiple kids and struggled to manage the technology for virtual learning.

By November, Vanessa was one of 24 kindergartners in Newark鈥檚 KIPP charter network listed as missing from remote school.

That鈥檚 when KIPP staff created the , a condensed school day that accommodated parents鈥� upended schedules. The program, which ran weeknights from 5:30 to 8 p.m, remained in place until the end of the school year.

鈥淚t was really a sad and scary time,鈥� Hodge said. 鈥淏ut I was like, 鈥楾he kid鈥檚 got to learn.鈥� 鈥�

As Hodge worked on her own assignments from Rutgers University, kindergarten teacher Meredith Eger led Vanessa and classmates in songs and games, and through the reading and math they鈥檇 missed since August. 

鈥淚t was fun and it was kind of weird,鈥� Vanessa, now 9, recalls. 鈥淲hen class was over, I didn’t have to pack up, because all my stuff was at home.鈥�

The program is a rare example of a school that moved quickly to keep children from missing out on their first year of school 鈥� a critical transition period in which they typically start developing academic and social skills. At a time when hundreds of thousands of parents struggled to balance work and Zoom, or held their children out of school until first grade, KIPP鈥檚 after-hours program offered families some consistency in the midst of turmoil. 

But nationally, many students who missed out on a normal kindergarten are still feeling the lingering effects of that lost year. released this month documented how the pandemic鈥檚 youngest learners experienced significant declines in general knowledge, cognitive development, and language and social skills compared with their peers before COVID. Academically, these students are still performing below pre-pandemic math and reading levels. 

Five years later, Vanessa is one of 11 night-school kindergartners who still attends KIPP Newark schools. She 鈥渨rites up a storm,鈥� Eger said, and often draws during lunch. Others prefer math. Parents notice their kids sometimes keep to themselves at home 鈥� a preference they blame on a shortage of playtime with peers during lockdowns. The educators who ran the program, which served students up to third grade, enjoy a special bond with the kids they nurtured through that trying period, grabbing hugs in the hallway or cafeteria when they can. 

鈥淭hey were falling drastically behind,鈥� said Rebecca Fletcher, the charter network鈥檚 director of school operations. 鈥淚t was a bright spot in such a dark time.鈥�

鈥楾hey weren’t coming to school鈥�

Thomas Dee, an education professor at Stanford University who tracked in kindergarten enrollment during school closures, called KIPP鈥檚 night school 鈥渁 creative way to meet the needs of parents during the crisis and one that wasn’t common in traditional public schools.鈥� Such flexibility may have also kept families from pursuing options, like pods or private schools that were in-person, he said. 

KIPP leaders didn鈥檛 compare the performance of the evening kindergartners to students who logged in during the day, making it difficult to measure student outcomes. But the program was born of necessity, Fletcher said: The abbreviated school day was better than no kindergarten at all. 

鈥淭hey weren’t coming to school,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t was about meeting families where they were.鈥� 

Parents turned to night kindergarten for a variety of reasons.

Nateesha St. Claire had just had her third child and couldn鈥檛 juggle an infant daughter and online school for Omari, her kindergartner.

鈥淎t night, there were really no distractions,鈥� she said. The baby was asleep. But it was still a struggle to keep Omari focused on his teacher. If St. Claire didn鈥檛 sit close, he鈥檇 walk away from the screen. He frequently asked why he couldn鈥檛 go to school.

Now in fourth grade, Omari is 鈥渢hriving鈥� in math, growing in reading and getting help in speech class to pronounce words more clearly, his mother said.

鈥楢 labor of love鈥� 

One advantage of the evening sessions were smaller classes, which allowed staff to identify students who had learning delays or qualified for special education services. Such needs might have gone undetected in a larger online group, said Kaneshia Clifford, who was principal of the program. 

Two children were on the autism spectrum and others, she said, were nonverbal or 鈥渕ildly verbal.鈥� She recruited special education teachers to the team who broke lessons down into smaller segments and organized separate Zoom groups for more targeted support. But keeping the kids鈥� attention while trying to assess their skills proved daunting. Teacher Adrienne Rodriguez Liriano rewarded students who focused on lessons by putting her dog Harlem on her lap in front of the camera. 

鈥淭eachers had to keep a lot of things on their brain,鈥� said Clifford, who had her own kindergartner at home at the time. 鈥淭hey’re looking at screens, asking kids to hold up white boards. They’re trying to monitor engagement in a virtual space, while also collecting data.鈥�

And that was after a full school day of teaching online and sometimes delivering laptops and hotspots to students鈥� homes. Fletcher described the schedule as 鈥済rueling,鈥� but also 鈥渁 labor of love and devotion.鈥� 

Because of the late hour, some students showed up on Zoom with wet hair and wearing pajamas. Others ate dinner during class. Some nodded off.

Beatriz Warren, who worked during the day as a home health aide in New York City, welcomed the evening option, which allowed her to attend to her son Josiah.

鈥淚t’s a mom thing, I guess,鈥� she said. 

Ear infections and surgeries caused Josiah鈥檚 learning to be delayed. He received therapy at home before the pandemic, but as kindergarten approached, Warren worried about whether to put him in a general or special education class. Night kindergarten offered a welcome mix of individualized support and as-close-to-normal a classroom experience as possible. 

鈥淗e bonded with the kids and the teachers,鈥� she said. And when schools reopened, Warren enrolled him in KIPP Upper Roseville Academy, where Liriano, his teacher, worked 鈥� even though it was a half hour away. Liriano now teaches outside of the KIPP network, but still Facetimes with Josiah and his mom.

鈥淗e asks about my daughter,鈥� Liriano said. 鈥淲e became invested in each other’s lives because of the environment we set for them.鈥�

鈥楬e lost a year鈥�

With their children nearing the end of elementary school, parents continue to see the ripple effects of a year without in-person learning. 

Josiah has overcome most learning delays and 鈥渄oes not stop talking,鈥� his mother said. But he often spends time alone rather than playing with friends or toys. And Hodge described Vanessa as a 鈥渉ermit鈥� who often retreats to her room.

鈥淭he kids were so young, they were conditioned to be inside because of COVID,鈥� Hodge said. 鈥淚 feel like a lot of the kids still are behind socially 鈥� because they couldn’t have normal interactions.鈥� 

Aminah Cooley鈥檚 grandson Ayden, also part of the evening kindergarten program, didn鈥檛 hold a pencil correctly until nearly second grade, she said.

鈥淭hey were looking at the screen. A lot of times, they weren’t using a pencil,鈥� she said. Now a fourth grader, Ayden loves math and enjoys the popular Dog Man series of graphic novels by Dav Pilkey. But academically, he鈥檚 not where he should be.

鈥淗e’s behind,鈥� Cooley said. 鈥淗e lost a year.鈥�

In the fall of 2020, Ayden often missed out on daytime virtual school. His mother was looking for work, internet access was spotty and the 鈥渄ynamics of the household,鈥� Cooley said, weren鈥檛 conducive to keeping a 5-year-old in front of the computer.

Cooley shopped on Facebook Marketplace for a table and chair set so he could do his work and called his house every evening to make sure he logged into class. 

鈥淚 knew I had to step in,鈥� she said. 鈥淗e’s in the fourth grade, and I’m still stepping in.鈥�

When KIPP opened an optional hybrid program in March 2021, Ayden was there.

鈥淗e recognized me, and he was like 鈥榊ou came to my house!鈥� 鈥� Fletcher said. 鈥淭o this day, I’ll see him in the hallway, and he’ll just give me a hug.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: This story, and a draft report linked to in the story, include references to racist, Islamophobic language and bigoted views that are violent in nature.

Newark Public Schools leaders failed to 鈥渜uickly and consistently鈥� respond to racist and bigoted incidents against Black students and teachers at a city school designed to embrace world cultures, according to a draft of a scathing report that district officials have sought to keep private.

A , obtained by Chalkbeat Newark, details harrowing examples of how Black students and teachers at the Newark School of Global Studies were 鈥渟ubjected to acts of anti-Blackness and anti-Black racism.鈥� The review also highlighted how the school鈥檚 response failed to address the problems, and in some cases, magnified racial issues.

The May 2023 draft of the report written by the consulting firm Creed Strategies is the public鈥檚 first look into the firm鈥檚 review of the cultural, racial, and religious dynamics at Global Studies that pushed some Black students to transfer and teachers to resign. The draft obtained by Chalkbeat is not the latest version of the report. But the district has fought to keep all versions of the report private, nearly two years after Newark school board leaders commissioned it.

Attorneys for the district have argued in court filings that the report is a 鈥減redecisional draft document鈥� and therefore exempt from the state鈥檚 public records law. If portions of the report were disclosed, 鈥渋t would have a chilling effect鈥� on the district鈥檚 ongoing efforts 鈥渢o improve dialogue and sensitivity practices鈥� at Global Studies and other schools, according to a court record outlining the district鈥檚 opposition to the Newark Teachers Union lawsuit seeking the release of the report.

In 2023, the Newark Teachers Union filed two lawsuits against the district over the release of the report, but the union agreed to  without its release.

The draft report paints a picture of a campus where Black students and teachers reported being called racial slurs by Latino students, the N-word was commonly used among non-Black students, and where complaints by Black students were often dismissed or minimized by administrators and non-Black staff. A male student was repeatedly called an anti-gay slur in class while a teacher was present, and other students made threats to 鈥渢ake off鈥� and 鈥渟tomp on鈥� the hijabs of Black and Arab Muslim female teachers, according to the review.

Read takeaways from .

Many of the allegations in the draft report have  substantiated in , and are mentioned in lawsuits against the district. The issues also caught the attention of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who hosted a town hall to discuss unity among Black and brown communities months after students spoke publicly about their experiences.

Former Global Studies teachers filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that school and district leaders created a hostile work environment where they experienced racial discrimination and retaliation, according to the lawsuit filed in Essex County Superior Court last spring. The lawsuit is ongoing.

The former teachers also filed claims with the U.S. 鈥嬧�婦epartment of Education鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights. The department opened an investigation into the claim on Dec. 21, 2023, and it is ongoing.

Paul Brubaker, the district鈥檚 communications director, did not respond to Chalkbeat鈥檚 request to provide a copy of the full Global Studies report. Instead, in an emailed response, he reiterated the district鈥檚 stance that the report is 鈥減rivileged and confidential.鈥� Brubaker said the school board 鈥渞eserves the right to take any and all appropriate action to prevent or redress injury to itself,鈥� district staff, school or students.

Brubaker did not respond to questions about the district鈥檚 efforts to fix the problems at the high school, how it changed its policies to address racial problems, and the professional support it has provided teachers with since the incidents at the school surfaced.

Superintendent Roger Le贸n promised to fix the problems

Staff, parents, and students were interviewed by Creed Strategies鈥� six-member review team about their experiences at the high school and were anonymously quoted throughout the draft report. The research team was made up of professors and education experts with experience in school leadership and representative of the demographics at Global Studies.

In interviews with Creed researchers, Black students described a 鈥渟ense of betrayal鈥� when their peers and adults used racial slurs, according to the draft report. Most Black students 鈥渇elt stunned, at a loss for words, or angry鈥� when the incidents occurred, the report read.

When asked by researchers about the reported incidents, some of the staff responded defensively, while others said they did not know about the issues until students spoke publicly in 2022, the review found. Teachers reported that the lack of transparency about the issues at Global Studies limited their ability to understand what was happening and eroded morale, the report read. Other staff said the aftermath of the issues becoming public caused 鈥渟ome upheaval鈥� at Global Studies with 鈥渧ery few鈥� attributing the chaos to the racist incidents Black students and teachers had described in 2022, the draft report stated.

But  revealed that school administrators had known about the issues before they became public, and a parent begged state and district officials for an end to the harassment against her son. School leaders missed an opportunity 鈥渢o address the professional learning needs鈥� of teachers to be responsive to the incidents and create 鈥渃ulturally responsive鈥� learning, according to the draft.

Some interviewees cited in the report also framed 鈥淏lack women and girls鈥� as 鈥渆asily triggered and angry鈥� when discussing the incidents at the school, the review notes. 鈥淚nstead of focusing on the systemic racism that Black women and girls are speaking up against, there was a sense of defensiveness,鈥� the draft report says. In claims filed by former , they alleged they 鈥渟uffered harassment and racial hostility by students and supervisors鈥� and felt their 鈥渨orth as a teacher and human being has been diminished.鈥�

Newark school board leaders commissioned the review of Global Studies at the start of 2023 in response to Black students speaking publicly about a pattern of racist harassment on campus. The May 2023 draft provided the district with three recommendations, which were released publicly, and meant to be 鈥減roactively implemented鈥� to tackle anti-Blackness and build Global Studies鈥� understanding of diversity, the draft read.

A mix of Global Studies parents, students, teachers, some board members, and community advocates have been calling on Superintendent Roger  the full report on the high school and address the problems. Le贸n promised students he would fix the problems at the school but he has not said what changes or efforts have been made at Global Studies, one of the district鈥檚 top magnet schools. Deborah Smith Gregory, president of NAACP Newark, is one of the advocates who has called on Le贸n to release the Global Studies report but has been ignored, she said during a school board .

鈥淚t seems that the rule of the superintendent is being sanctioned by the board with little oversight and question,鈥� said Smith Gregory in December.

Despite calls for transparency, the Newark school board last month quietly  to remove one of its longest-serving members after her daughter filed a legal claim against the district alleging racial harassment and discrimination during her time as a student at Global Studies. A New Jersey judge denied the petition but the state鈥檚 commissioner of education will issue a final decision by February.

School leaders did not communicate seriousness of harassment

Students reported racist incidents at the high school since  during remote learning in 2020, while the number of Black students has decreased steadily since then, according to the draft.

According to the draft report, Global Studies鈥� leaders had a 鈥渓imited response鈥� to the harassment reported by students and 鈥渃entered impact rather than intent鈥� of the incidents. Interviews found that some school staff learned about the incidents through their relationships with students and the teachers involved. A 鈥渧ery small group鈥� said 鈥渢hey had no knowledge of the incidents before the students鈥� public comments鈥� in November 2022, the report read.

Staff interviewees also said 鈥渢he effect of the public reports and media鈥� on the school environment led to 鈥渃haos鈥� and 鈥渋ll feelings,鈥� the draft states. Some suggested that the feelings were 鈥渋ntensified by the lack of clear communication about why students were complaining and leaving the school,鈥� the report read.

鈥淚 think that has made some students more like, upset, angry 鈥� Unraveled things a little bit. So that鈥檚 like an unfortunate thing that it鈥檚 like kind of causing some upheaval,鈥� said one interviewee in the report.

As part of the review, teachers and administrators told researchers about 11 reported incidents. Discipline for those incidents ranged from written apologies and cultural sensitivity training to mediation and suspensions, according to the draft. Of the consequences, 22 students had in-school detention, seven received out-of-school suspensions, seven had a parent conference, six received mediation, four participated in out-of-school counseling, three received after-school detention, and three more had a conflict resolution session, according to the draft.

With one exception, Black adult interviewees expressed their belief that Black students experienced racial harm at the high school, while six out of the seven non-Black, non-Latino adults interviewed said 鈥渢hey believed the students and expressed concern about their well-being,鈥� according to the report.

Some said they were also aware of racist incidents against Black and Asian American teachers in the building, the report found. The former teachers who filed a lawsuit against the district claimed they also suffered 鈥渟evere emotional problems鈥� leading them to seek 鈥減sychological counseling鈥� after experiencing racial harassment at the high school. But nine interviewees also suggested the reports of Black students and media coverage 鈥渨ere exaggerated and wanted to set the record straight,鈥� according to the report.

Others lamented the school鈥檚 approaches to addressing the incidents and 鈥渓ack of communication about them were eroding teacher morale,鈥� according to the draft. One teacher specifically suggested that because of the public scrutiny, 鈥渁dministrators started to backtrack reports stated about one of the formally reported incidents,鈥� the report read.

鈥淚 want to say that when I hear these recordings about what people are saying and including the students that are in the school, to me, it feels like they鈥檙e talking about another school. Because I do not see that. You know, I have not heard that,鈥� an interviewee told researchers.

Missed opportunity to support staff, teachers at Global Studies

One of the main draws of Global Studies was that it promised students would 鈥渄evelop a global perspective鈥� through second-language immersion, exploration of different cultures and career pathways that emphasized international relations in business and diplomacy.

But the overall environment at the school 鈥� and the way it was run 鈥� led to administrators 鈥渕issing the opportunity to represent the diversity of its students鈥� lived experiences and aspirations within the environment and their learning,鈥� according to the report.

When Global Studies opened its doors in 2021 following remote learning, the school was newly renovated and well maintained with college-related signs throughout hallways. But researchers found that the overall tone of the school lacked 鈥渢he spirit and vitality typical of a high school,鈥� with much of it resembling an elementary and middle school, according to the report.

Most classroom walls were decorated with word walls and inspirational posters or pictures, the report found. Wall displays 鈥渞arely demonstrated鈥� how students grappled with topics like geographical and linguistic diversity and global political institutions, the report found. The main theme of the school, which highlights students as global citizens, was often tied by staff to specific celebrations such as Hispanic Heritage and Black History months and notable figures, according to the report.

Additionally, most teachers lacked previous high school teaching experience, according to the report. Students spent 鈥渆xtended periods of time sitting silently鈥� and had a lack of dialogue in classrooms, the report found.

Early on, the school and district administration had not cultivated an environment that encouraged staff to examine and challenge their assumptions of implicit bias and other forms of racism, according to the report.

When Black students spoke about their experiences of racial harassment, school administrators hosted a staff discussion of a book called 鈥淐ourageous Conversations About Race,鈥� according to the report. But staff members weren鈥檛 clear about why they were attending the discussions and told Creed researchers the conversations felt 鈥渟urface-level鈥� and 鈥渓acked transparency and support, and limited their capacity to understand and address the issues鈥� that were happening, the report read.

鈥淭here was a missed opportunity to address the professional learning needs of instructional staff to be responsive to these issues as a part of student learning,鈥� the report said.

Response did more damage, leading to transfers, resignations

After Black students spoke out publicly, district leaders held assemblies largely viewed 鈥渁s insufficient and ineffective鈥� by others, according to the report.

During the 2022-23 school year, Global Studies principal Nelson Ruiz held an assembly for the entire school where he told all students not to use the N-word or they would be suspended, according to the report. The school鈥檚 zero-tolerance for the N-word was 鈥渘ot only viewed as harming victims, but it also policed the language and speaking practices of Black students,鈥� the report read.

Interviewees also discussed a pizza party for Black students that some students felt 鈥渨as an attempt to drive their attention away from the issue,鈥� according to the report. During the , a former Global Studies student said school administrators called members of the Black Student Union 鈥渁nd gave us pizza, candy and even soda,鈥� in what she felt was an attempt to silence students. Ruiz did not respond to calls, a text, or emailed questions from Chalkbeat about his response to the incidents.

Le贸n also held an assembly during the 2022-23 school year, specifically for the junior class, where students were told, 鈥淚f they don鈥檛 feel comfortable [at NSGS], basically they can leave,鈥� a student interviewee said. Students interpreted Le贸n鈥檚 comment as 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 like it, you can leave,鈥� according to the report. Student interviewees also felt as if school staff were not facilitating their transfer requests because of a lack of communication between Le贸n and the school, while others said it was because the school 鈥渄id not want to lose high-achieving Black students,鈥� the draft report stated.

Those findings echo what students had told Newark school board members. During the January 2023 board meeting,  they were being told by guidance counselors that they couldn鈥檛 transfer. One student told board members that Leon鈥檚 speech 鈥渄idn鈥檛 feel like it had any empathy and it gave very much, 鈥榠f you don鈥檛 like it, then go home.鈥� Another student said 鈥渁 vast amount of students鈥� lined up outside of the guidance counselors鈥� offices the day after Le贸n鈥檚 assembly. A third student said guidance counselors told her multiple times that she couldn鈥檛 transfer and if she left 鈥渉ow would that make us feel.鈥�

Staff interviewees also said high-performing Black students were the first students to try to transfer out and some considered how that would impact the school鈥檚 image, according to the draft report.

The transfer rates of Black students have 鈥渟ignificantly increased鈥� each year at Global Studies in comparison to all other student groups, according to data included in the draft report. Black students have been less likely to complete an academic year at the school than their peers at Newark School of Data Science and Information Technology, Newark Fashion and Design, and Newark Vocational, the report stated.

At the end of the 2021-22 school year, six Black students transferred out of Global Studies and in the following school year, another seven Black students had transferred as of March 15, 2023, according to the report. During the 2022-23 school year, three Black female teachers resigned, all from the same department, and two Latino students were transferred out, the report notes.

Throughout the report, researchers also found that the school鈥檚 restorative approach to the issues did not adequately address 鈥渢he persistence or saliency鈥� of racist comments by students. To address the incidents, administrators called for parent conferences and time of reflection with students that led Black students to feel emotionally unsafe about being forced to work with students who used racist language toward them and were allowed to remain in classes, according to the report.

The practices also 鈥渃reated an atmosphere where some Latino students felt they could use racist language toward Black students and teachers without consequence,鈥� the draft reads.

Staff members who were interviewed said they were following district policy and 鈥渆mploying a restorative approach鈥� to discipline students while others acknowledged they had an 鈥渆ducative role鈥� to address the use of racial language by non-Black students, the report found.

One teacher acknowledged that education 鈥渙n the background of why some of the things [students] say to each other are so hurtful鈥� would be useful.

鈥淚 think especially for recent immigrants, they come here, and they hear that kind of dialogue, and they adopt it thinking like they鈥檙e gonna be proud and part of American culture and have no background for it, and don鈥檛 realize that for them, it鈥檚 not appropriate to talk that way,鈥� according to the teacher.

The report  build school staff鈥檚 capacity to identify cultural gaps, create a racially conscious and inclusive environment, foster conversations about race, and assess the effects of anti-Blackness on the school system.

Researchers also noted that 鈥渢he courage and resilience鈥� of Black students at Global Studies who assumed leadership positions in school organizations, participated in extracurricular activities, and are high achievers demonstrated a level 鈥渙f social awareness and activism鈥� by challenging racial discrimination.

Their efforts were aligned with the Global Studies theme, the report found.

This was originally published on .

The Newark charter school was selected for a free science field trip after another nearby school couldn鈥檛 go. It was May 2012, and middle school teacher Patricia Fartura was in charge of bringing 30 eighth graders to the organization鈥檚 technology center 鈥� a trip she would make an annual event. 

鈥淭hat鈥檚 when the journey began. And our students loved it,鈥� Fartura said. 鈥淚t allowed students who would normally not be in that scenario or the situation of seeing what a science lab really looks like to get hands-on experience.鈥� 

Fartura is now the curriculum supervisor at Varisco-Rogers, but its middle schoolers still visit Students 2 Science鈥檚 technology center to conduct multi-day experiments, such as simulating how the digestive system works or testing the energy content in caffeinated drinks.

Varisco-Rogers is one of more than 150 schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that partner with the 15-year-old , sending students three times a year to its technology centers for all-day programs in chemistry, biotechnology, physics and engineering. When students arrive, they are split into research teams and work with scientists to conduct experiments that connect to real-world issues, according to the nonprofit. 

For now, Students 2 Science serves middle and high school students at two centers, located in Newark and East Hanover, New Jersey. But the nonprofit recently of its program to elementary students, especially those in third and fourth grade, with a new 20,000-square-foot technology center near Whippany, New Jersey. It will replace the East Hanover facility in fall 2025.

The nonprofit also provides virtual laboratory lessons for teachers to livestream in their classrooms and a career-exploration program for high schoolers.

Dan Barnett, Student 2 Science鈥檚 chief development officer, said the organization decided to include younger students after hearing from schools that elementary classrooms had a shortage of science teachers.

鈥淭here’s such a lack of science teachers, or teachers that have a science background or can teach science in the elementary levels, especially for our school districts that are in such great need overall for resources,鈥� Barnett said. 鈥淲e worked with consultants to help develop a curriculum that aligned to New Jersey standards for learning and science. And now we are looking for a specialist to lead that program.鈥�

Fartura said the decision to include elementary students will be critical to improving their academic success and trajectory. 

鈥淚 think at a younger age is where we want to get them [interested in STEM], because it’ll just continue to create passion for the subject, especially with all the careers that are out there now 鈥� everything is STEM,鈥� she said.

show that young children begin to lose interest in science, technology, engineering and math as they grow older when they don’t have mentors to encourage them. found that this decline is more common among girls, students from low-income families and children of color.

This school year, Varisco-Rogers began incorporating STEM into its own elementary curriculum. Majority of the school鈥檚 are Hispanic and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. 

Fartura said that so far, she has seen the school’s third and fourth graders become more engaged in their learning when STEM activities are involved.

鈥淭he little ones are 鈥� absorbing everything,鈥� she said. 鈥淏y the time I would get my students in sixth grade 鈥� even 10 years ago, 15 years ago 鈥� if they didn’t have that passion for science, it was so difficult for me to try to kind of push them.鈥�

As Students 2 Science prepares to open its new site, the organization is also reimagining ways STEM can be taught through its two other programs, Barnett said. 

The V-Lab Program offers virtual laboratory lessons that can be remotely streamed at any school. Classroom teachers are given science materials, and a Students 2 Science instructor teaches a 45- to 50-minute lesson.

There is also a career advancement program that offers high school students opportunities for training and internships in STEM fields.

鈥淲e are really focused on exposure, making sure students know what options are out there, especially in the state of New Jersey,鈥� Barnett said. 鈥淲e recognize that for the communities that we serve, the students don’t necessarily get exposed to all of those opportunities, so that’s really what the focus of that program is, and that’s going to, I think, make a greater impact.鈥�

About 90% of Students 2 Science participants are students of color, and 52% are female, according to the nonprofit. Since its inception in 2009, the organization has served more than 250,000 students.

One former student, Nomase Iyamu, said his participation in 2015 led him to a career in pharmaceuticals. He began at Students 2 Science as a sophomore at Bard High School Early College, which is part of Newark Public Schools, interned there as a college student and helped create the V-Lab Program. 

Imayu said Students 2 Science allowed him to make mistakes while experimenting with science and technology in high school. That opportunity sparked his interest in the pharmaceutical field, which eventually led him to enroll in business school to create his own pharmaceutical startup company.

鈥淚t took STEM for me to become an entrepreneur, so it may take STEM for someone to do something else that they’re actually passionate about,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 definitely see Students 2 Science as a very strong stepping stone to any career path that you want to have. I would definitely not be here without them.鈥�

Ten years ago, Camden Prep became one of the first schools in New Jersey鈥檚 to attempt to resuscitate a chronically poor-performing elementary school.

That same year, Maurquay Moody started fourth grade at Camden Prep, in a classroom dubbed 鈥淭he College of New Jersey.鈥� Uncommon Schools, the nonprofit charter operator tasked with turning around Maurquay鈥檚 neighborhood school, names each classroom after a college in an effort to raise postsecondary expectations.

The state had recently taken control of K-12 schools in Camden, a city then-Gov. Chris Christie had called 鈥渁 human catastrophe.鈥� Barely 20% of students could read at grade level, and fewer than half graduated high school. Twenty-three of the city鈥檚 26 schools were among the lowest-achieving in the state. 

Over the next few years, like many other urban districts beset by plummeting property values and spiking rates of poverty and crime, Camden welcomed several new public charter schools and turned over its most chronically failing schools to education nonprofits, which rebranded them as renaissance schools. 

Today, Camden is considered one of the country鈥檚 most innovative districts. More than two-thirds of students attend public charter or renaissance schools, enrollment is climbing and the city is steadily, if incrementally, closing performance gaps among low-income kids.

To be sure, the school system has a long way to go: The majority of students still don鈥檛 read on grade level, chronic absenteeism is on the rise and budget constraints present a serious challenge. 

But shows that low-income kids in Camden boosted their proficiency on state standardized exams by 21 points between the 2010-11 and 2022-23 school years. And in doing so, they closed a longstanding performance gap with peers statewide by 42%. 

Maurquay was among those who benefited from this evolution. And in a full-circle testament to just how far the city has come, in August he stepped onto The College of New Jersey’s real-life campus as a freshman 鈥� a first-generation college student with a full scholarship. 

Camden isn鈥檛 the only low-income city where students in charter or renaissance-like schools are closing learning gaps with their more affluent peers. 

A from the Progressive Policy Institute finds that over the last decade, low-income students in large districts that aggressively expanded public school choices have started to catch up to their peers statewide 鈥� and performance levels are rising in both charter and district-led schools. In fact, in the 10 districts with the highest percentage of students enrolled in charter schools, low-income students citywide closed the gap with statewide test score averages by 25% to 40%. (The analysis doesn’t include New Orleans, where 100% of district students attend charter schools.)

鈥淲e just wanted to 鈥� see if the impact was spilling over,鈥� says Tressa Pankovits, co-director of PPI鈥檚 Reinventing Public Schools project. 鈥淲e were really surprised by the amount of gap closure between students citywide and the statewide averages. It wasn’t just single digits. It was well into double digits.鈥� 

The analysis examined data from cities across the country where a majority of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and where at least a third of kids attend a public charter or charter-like school. The researchers used average standardized test scores from third through eighth grade. 

The researchers underscored that the one-third proportion is not a guaranteed or proven tipping point, but that in nearly every case where those schools reached or exceeded that enrollment level, academic growth rose across the city for all low-income students.

鈥淭here has been slow but steady progress in Camden,鈥漵ays Giana Campbell, executive director of the Camden Education Fund. 鈥淪ure, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, but when we look at where the city was 10 years ago, we’re really, really encouraged by the progress that we’re seeing across the city.鈥�

鈥淲e knew a time in Camden where we didn鈥檛 have this diversity of school types and progress wasn’t what it is today. The proficiency scores in Camden in 2010 were just criminal. There wasn’t much lower we could go,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that being one of the most innovative school systems, with all these different school types, that we’ve been able to see the progress that we have today.鈥�

New Jersey is home to another standout in PPI鈥檚 report: Newark, where 35% of students are enrolled in public charter schools and the performance gap closed by 45% across the same 12-year period.

Missouri boasts two school systems making similar progress. In Kansas City, where 46% of students are enrolled in public charter schools, the performance gap between low-income students and all students closed by 31% between the 2010-11 school year and 2022-23. And in St. Louis, where 39% of students are enrolled in public charter schools, the performance gap closed by 30%.

Hannah Lofthus, founder and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, says the report鈥檚 findings reflect what she has experienced over the last 15 years in Kansas City, which offers enrollment in neighborhood schools; charter schools; 鈥渟ignature鈥� schools, which focus on college preparation; and career and technical schools. Kauffman consists of two charter middle schools and a charter high school.

鈥淲e said, 鈥楬ow can we figure out what works for kids and then replicate that,鈥欌�� she explains. The daughter of two public school teachers, she says collaboration among the various types of schools in the city has been key to the big gains posted by low-income students. 鈥淲e have kids coming to us in fifth grade 15% proficient in reading and math, and they leave somewhere around 70% proficient.鈥�

Pankovits cautions that the analysis shows correlation, not causation. And while the increases demonstrate significant academic growth, proficiency is still low for the majority of students in these districts. 

But Pankovits also says the report refutes that charters drain district schools of the best students and resources, to the detriment of those left behind. Instead, she argues, the increasing enrollment in charter schools creates 鈥渁 positive competitive dynamic,鈥� and that the report’s findings should bolster policymakers鈥� confidence in the potential for fixing underperforming schools for all students in low-income communities. 

Effectively, a rising tide lifts all boats: When looking only at traditional district schools in Camden, for example, low-income students closed 35% of the proficiency gap during the same decade-long window, versus 42% for the district overall.

Like Camden, Indianapolis has traditional district schools, charters and so-called innovation schools that it uses to drive its academic turnaround. The report found that in the city, where 58% of students are enrolled in public charter schools or innovation schools, the performance gap between low-income students and all kids statewide closed by 23% between the 2010-11 and 2022-23 school years.

鈥淭he report confirms what we’ve seen in Indianapolis for a long time,鈥� says Brandon Brown, CEO of the , a nonprofit that supports the city鈥檚 charter and innovation schools. 鈥淎nd a lot of the evidence shows that the growth of high-quality charter schools does not come at the expense of the school district. It really tends to lift many of the outcomes for schools of all types.鈥�

鈥淚 think we’ve shown in Indianapolis that it’s hard and it’s not a straight line and we don’t always agree, but when these systems work together, the chances that kids are going to benefit will go way up,” he says. “And I think we’ve seen that here very clearly.鈥�

The report comes as America鈥檚 schools are still trying to chart a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which set students back academically and decreased enrollment. A from National Alliance for Public Charter Schools finds that over the past five years, charter schools gained nearly 400,000 students, while district schools lost 1.75 million. Hispanic and Black families are increasingly choosing charters, the report shows, with Hispanic enrollment growing 18 times faster in charters than in district schools. 

In Indianapolis, enrollment is on the rise, and at the highest point in more than a decade 鈥� a fact Brown credits to the public school choices that families have. For the first time, he says, parents from adjacent school districts are opting into the city system. 

鈥淟arge urban districts across the country that are facing massive enrollment declines should look at Indianapolis and see the collaboration to create high-quality options for families, and see it as a way to mitigate negative impacts on enrollment,鈥� Brown says. 鈥淲hen system leaders can work together, it tends to grow enrollment, and that stands in stark contrast to a lot of school districts across the country.鈥�

Correction: The former Camden Prep student’s name is Maurquay Moody.

Disclosure: The Mind Trust provides financial support to 麻豆精品.

Robert Brown and his wife moved to Newark after 10 years of living in Florida, where they faced challenges in getting special education services for their two sons who have autism.

Their children, Warren, 9, and Nathaniel, 6, are both nonverbal and require speech, applied behavior analysis, and occupational therapies. Nathaniel has a more severe disability, Brown said, and requires the same services as his older brother along with behavioral therapy and a classroom aide.

After enrolling his sons in Newark Public Schools in July using the Newark Enrolls application online, he thought they were all set.

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But on Sept. 3, Newark Public Schools鈥� first day of school, Brown took his sons to McKinley Elementary School, the school they were supposed to attend, only to be told McKinley had space for Warren, but not for Nathaniel. The younger boy has been forced to stay home ever since 鈥� missing the crucial first week of a school year as well as much-needed services that help with Nathaniel鈥檚 disability.

The Browns are not the only family whose return to school has been marked by confusion and disruption. Several other parents of children with disabilities told Chalkbeat Newark that on the first day of school, they were told their child did not have a school placement. Other parents said they were told their child was enrolled at a different school.

The issues families are grappling with this year speak to a growing need in the district where an increasing number of students require special education services. This school year, roughly half of Newark Public Schools鈥� nearly 40,000 students is made up of vulnerable students in need of additional support and resources. This fall, roughly 7,000 students need special education services and another 11,000 .

The district said it鈥檚 not experiencing a problem with enrollment and that those seeking a placement can visit the Newark Enrolls website or the school closest to their home for direct assistance and support, Paul Brubaker, Newark Public Schools communication director, said in a Sept. 6 email to Chalkbeat. Students who have completed the enrollment process and are placed at school receive the services and accommodations they are entitled to from their first day of attendance, Brubaker added.

But Brown said that鈥檚 not what his family has experienced.

After a plan to move to New York fell through, the family scrambled to secure an apartment in Newark over the summer. Brown said he enrolled his sons in the district by using the Newark Enrolls application. By early August, he had already sent the district his children鈥檚 Individualized Education Program, a written plan that outlines the services a student with a disability needs in school, along with a list of 10 schools he would prefer his children to attend.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going through the motions, but it鈥檚 frustrating, you know because I did everything early, I figured that, you know, that would have helped,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淚 know there鈥檚 an overcrowding problem, but you know, he needs to go somewhere. He can鈥檛 be out of school, this isn鈥檛 the 1700s.鈥�

Brown says he鈥檚 reached out to the district鈥檚 Board of Education and a special needs coordinator at the state鈥檚 department of education, which are in the process of finding a school for Nathaniel but the principal at McKinley told him no seats are available for students with disabilities across the city.

And the clock is ticking. Brown is set to begin work in a few weeks, while Nathaniel sits at home along with his sick grandmother who is cared for by Brown鈥檚 wife.

Nathaniel, who has severe autism, will run around the house and scream when he鈥檚 told not to do something, Brown said. The family goes to bed by 10:30 p.m. every night so Nathaniel can sleep through the night but often he wakes up around 3:30 a.m. full of energy. His son鈥檚 neurologist prescribed medication for Nathaniel but in the end, Brown said, his son needs the proper services to help him manage his disability.

Like Brown, Alyssa Drysdale was told on the first day of school that her kindergarten daughter Eva, who has an IEP, was not enrolled at the school she was supposed to attend: Quitman Street Elementary School where she had gone to pre-K last year.

Drysdale waited over an hour on the first day of classes in the school鈥檚 gym with her daughter Eva, who requires speech therapy and may need an aide this school year as she can be easily triggered in a classroom environment. Drysdale wasn鈥檛 told why she and other parents had to wait until she spoke with school staff who told her that Eva wasn鈥檛 enrolled in the school, Drysdale said.

The school鈥檚 principal and her staff were working to find a placement for Eva when Drysdale realized she needed to check her car. As she was walking out, she saw her car getting towed.

鈥淚 see my car in the back of a tow truck, and I had to pick up Eva, and she鈥檚 so heavy, and I鈥檓 literally chasing the tow truck down. Like, please, oh my God, can I have my car back now? I wasn鈥檛 expecting to take this long,鈥� Drysdale said.

When she went back to the school, Drysdale 鈥渏ust wanted to cry there, like I was so sad.鈥� She spoke with a caseworker who said to wait for a call from the district with a placement for Eva. In the meantime, Drysdale said, they offered a take-home packet so Eva could do school work at home.

Instead, Drysdale said she returned the next day to drop Eva off at the school.

鈥淚 do work overnight, but the only time I do get to rest is during school, so I ended up dropping her in the morning, but this situation was a little weird to me,鈥� Drysdale said.

The next day, a caseworker told Drysdale they would take Eva while the school figured out a permanent placement for her. But Drysdale isn鈥檛 sure if her daughter will move to another classroom or when her speech therapy, which Eva needs so she can learn to express herself better, will begin, Drysdale said.

鈥淪he can express her needs,鈥� Drysdale said, 鈥漛ut as far as being in depth, she wouldn鈥檛 be able to explain herself.鈥�

Newark students with disabilities face recurring problems

Brown鈥檚 and Drysdale鈥檚 enrollment issues parents of students with disabilities have faced in Newark. Students with disabilities also face greater learning challenges as they have been some of the from the COVID-19 pandemic, with from learning disruptions.

In 2019, the New Jersey Department of Education cited the district for related to education plans for students with disabilities.

In 2022, the with reporting in education plans, notifying parents of meetings, and missing meetings with parents and students with disabilities as part of responsibilities mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The state ordered the district to take corrective action by November 2022.

This year鈥檚 enrollment problems are also affecting high school students. Tameerah Green鈥檚 son, Jaimir Velez, is a 10th grade student with an IEP, who last year, attended Eagle Academy located inside Weequahic High School. On Aug. 16, Green received a letter from the district confirming that her son鈥檚 district-provided transportation would arrive on the first day of school and drop him off at Eagle Academy.

But on Sept. 3, after her son was picked up by his bus and dropped off at Eagle Academy, Green received a call from Clark Thompson, the school鈥檚 child study team social worker, notifying her Jaimir was supposed to attend Malcolm X Shabazz High school, not Eagle. No one had told her about the school change prior to that morning.

Jaimir has a learning disability and needs a stable environment with familiar teachers to avoid sparking behavioral issues, Green said. The mother sent Jaimir to Eagle Academy the next day, on Sept. 4, but when he returned home, Jaimir said a teacher told him he wasn鈥檛 supposed to be at the school.

On the third day of school, Jaimir started to complain about headaches and stomach cramps, which Green feels is a result of not feeling welcomed at the school. Jaimir hasn鈥檛 been back to school since Sept. 4.

鈥淚 took him to the doctor today to make sure everything was fine but I know where it鈥檚 coming from,鈥� said Green on Monday.

Advocate Nadine Wright-Arbubakrr has a long history of working with Newark families to secure school services and, through her nonprofit Nassan鈥檚 Place, offers . But this is the first time she has heard about parents of students with disabilities facing enrollment issues during the first days of school.

鈥淗ow is it possible that these parents continue to deal with these problems every school year? It鈥檚 just not fair,鈥� said Wright-Arbubakrr, who founded Nassan鈥檚 Place more than 10 years ago to help families navigate the problems she once faced as a Newark parent of a student with autism.

With the second week of school underway, Brown and his family are hoping the district can find a school for Nathaniel soon. In the meantime, he鈥檚 looking at schools outside of the district, including , a private K-12 school that offers programs for students with disabilities at its Montclair and Union campuses.

But ultimately, he hopes Newark can provide his youngest son with a public school education, 鈥渂ecause that鈥檚 why we came here.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 going to start working in maybe a couple weeks, but I鈥檓 not going to be here, then everything, mostly, is going to be on my wife,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already overwhelmed.鈥�

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This was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

More than 7,000 cameras equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities will be installed in Newark schools, under a $12 million contract approved Thursday by the Newark Board of Education.

District officials say the high-tech surveillance system is meant to make schools safer, but that systems with such capabilities could result in an invasion of privacy or could potentially misidentify items or students.

Turn-Key Technologies Inc., based in Sayreville, N.J., will install the cameras and their required servers and storage across schools this summer as part of a two-year contract. Approving the contract was 鈥渢ime-sensitive,鈥� said Valerie Wilson, Newark鈥檚 school business administrator, as district officials want the 7,700 cameras 鈥� roughly one for every five students 鈥� in place by Aug. 31, before the start of the new school year.

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The project will be funded in part by federal COVID relief dollars, specifically, American Rescue Plan dollars that expire at the end of September, in conjunction with local funds and grants, Wilson added.

Board member Vereliz Santana said the project was 鈥渃omprehensive and ambitious鈥� and asked for routine updates as installation begins in June. Other members raised questions about how the system would work to detect vaping.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a large bid, as you can see from the funds that are being allocated, but we want to make effective use of our federal funding,鈥� said Wilson during Thursday鈥檚 meeting.

The new system comes as city leaders and advocates call for measures to reduce violence among youth in Newark.

The city will begin enforcing a youth curfew on Friday. The rule is in response to an increase in youth violence, said , which includes two shooting incidents this school year. In November, a 15-year-old Central High School student was shot during a drive-by and in March, another two students were shot outside West Side High School.

Turn-Key鈥檚 new system will expand the district鈥檚 surveillance capabilities, going beyond its current camera system to detect weapons and track people and cars across schools by using license plate and facial recognition. Last year, Newark schools said new technology was needed because its current security set-up is 鈥渙utdated, inefficient,鈥� pointing to no remote access, storage, and other limitations.

In May 2023, the district said it expected to install cameras by the end of that year after requesting bids from surveillance technology companies in September 2023. But the installation was delayed for almost a year after bidders did not meet the New Jersey Alarm or Locksmith License requirement, prompting the district to revise its project specifications and request bids for a second time in April 2024, Wilson said.

In addition to upgrading the district鈥檚 surveillance technology, the new setup will use an 鈥淎vigilon surveillance system,鈥� a type of framework that allows Newark to expand its systems as security needs change or develop, said Jermaine Wilson, a senior research engineer , a security and surveillance research group.

That system will work with that can detect vape, gun sounds, and abnormal noise in areas where there are no cameras such as bathrooms, according to the district鈥檚 request for proposal.

鈥淚 want to be very clear to everybody that in no way shape or form will this result in an invasion of privacy of anyone鈥檚 students, staff, or otherwise,鈥� Wilson said. 鈥淐ameras and devices will not and cannot be placed in areas that are not approved and authorized.鈥�

The contract was approved by all school board members except Crystal Williams who abstained from voting. During the Thursday meeting, board member Josephine Garcia said vaping in schools is an issue the district has 鈥渂een battling and sounding the alarm on for quite some time.鈥� She requested clarification on the type of vape sensors that will be used in schools, an explanation that would be given during the board鈥檚 private operations committee meeting this month due to security concerns, Wilson said.

鈥淪o as we talk about our safety and security initiatives, we want to ensure that we do not provide all of our information in the public domain,鈥� Wilson added.

Superintendent Roger Le贸n said the district is in conversation with the city鈥檚 Office of Emergency Management 鈥渁bout a number of things鈥� that are set to take place this coming school year. He would share more information with the public 鈥渙nce those initiatives are in effect,鈥� Le贸n added.

Wilson also said city police officials would not have access to the system, which includes cameras inside and outside of school buildings and other district locations.

The district has spent millions to increase security over the years. The school district to scan students for contraband and weapons and added six new patrol cars for school safety officers. It also provided its security guards with training on bag scanners, active shooter response, and the district鈥檚 drug and alcohol policy. Newark plans to hire more security guards and update its software to track school incidents.

Thursday鈥檚 contract was approved during May鈥檚 reorganization meeting where Haynes, Santana, Helena Vinhas, and Kanileah Anderson were sworn in after winning . Hasani Council was chosen as board president, along with Santana and Allison James-Frison as co-vice presidents.

Jessie G贸mez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

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When A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, I was twelve years old. I was growing up in Los Angeles as one of three birth children in a diverse family of fourteen, and I had witnessed firsthand the unacceptable circumstances my adopted brothers and sisters experienced in a broken child welfare system. It was clear to me that our education system was similarly broken, and I could plainly tell that succeeding in school was much easier for those of us who held privilege.

As the child of two dedicated civil servants who are avowed Democrats, I never would have guessed that a report coming out of the Reagan administration would help spur a transformative movement that would tap into my activist, social justice upbringing and provide a path for me to play a small part in moving the needle on education equity.

We鈥檝e come a long way since 1983. Over these many years, my friends and colleagues in the school reform movement and I have led hard-fought progress鈥攁s well as committed some glaring missteps. These years of experience, coupled with a deep and growing body of research, have yielded invaluable lessons for how we, as a nation, can come ever closer to delivering on the promise of education excellence for all kids.

Educational leaders have used these decades to explore an entire continuum from tweaking and refining existing systems to innovating and disrupting the status quo. The solutions are out there. The talent is out there. Even the money is out there. So what is holding us back?

In this chapter I will share reflections from our attempt to answer this question in Newark, where I served as superintendent from 2011 to 2015. Building on the lessons and experience from nearly twenty years of reform, we launched a number of ambitious but commonsense reforms, culminating in the 鈥淥ne Newark鈥� plan. Our goal was to engage the entire community and its leaders to address the educational needs of every child in every neighborhood in Newark. It was a bold and controversial effort that aimed to bring the best of what educators and policymakers had learned about driving change through top-down systems reform, bottom-up community demand, innovative labor approaches, and new school models.

Much has been written about the personalities and political drama in Newark during that time, but almost nothing has been written about the actual playbook and results. More importantly, I believe the reform efforts there still serve as useful examples to illustrate what is possible, what we should correct, and where we should go next.

Examination of this period in Newark will raise critical questions about what policymakers and community leaders at all levels should do to foster a system holistic and flexible enough that it would address the needs of all children, especially those our current systems of education and social service have historically and consistently failed the most. I will outline four steps policymakers can take to catalyze change and center the students and families who face the most challenges.

The road to reform in Newark

I was appointed superintendent of Newark Public Schools (NPS) in 2011 by then governor Chris Christie and the state鈥檚 education commissioner at the time, Chris Cerf. While most school districts have a local board charged with hiring a superintendent, NPS had lost that authority back in 1995, when the state took control of the district.

New Jersey鈥檚 constitution has uniquely strong language compelling the state to intervene in the event of chronic failure. As far back as the 1967 rebellion in Newark, there had been growing political support for the state to step in and address the city鈥檚 abysmal student achievement, despite vehement objections from local elected officials.

I was the fourth in a line of state-appointed district leaders to arrive with a mandate for reform and improvement to Newark. But my arrival came with an even greater sense of urgency. About nine months before my first day, multibillionaire Mark Zuckerberg famously announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show, seated next to Governor Christie and Cory Booker, then mayor of Newark, that he was making an unprecedented one-time gift of $100 million to the city鈥檚 school reform efforts. Just prior to this, the governor had also announced his decision not to renew my predecessor鈥檚 contract, sending a clear signal that change had not moved quickly or decisively enough in Newark.

It was clear that Newark school improvement was a signature political issue for Christie, and the pressure to raise achievement and improve efficiency was intense. On a trip to Washington, DC, earlier that year, he proclaimed to national media that 鈥渋n the city of Newark, we are spending $24,000 per pupil, and public money for an absolutely disgraceful public education system鈥攐ne that should embarrass our entire state.鈥�

Indeed, as I arrived in Newark, 39 percent of students who entered the system failed to graduate, and only 40 percent of third-graders could read and write at grade level. Enrollment was plummeting. The district鈥檚 nearly forty thousand6 students and one hundred schools made it the largest in the state, with the majority of students living below the poverty level. The schools themselves were a physical manifestation of the deterioration and decay. I still shudder at the memory of rats floating in basements amid boilers dating back to the 1950s and of Lafayette Elementary School (built when Abraham Lincoln was president), which had actual mushrooms growing in the cafeteria after Hurricane Irene.

Local politicians and families had grown impatient. For the five years prior to my arrival as superintendent, many elected leaders had become early adopters of a growing national charter school movement that aimed to free individual schools and networks of schools from government red tape and allow them autonomy to innovate and build excellent schools. These supporters included Booker (then a young councilman), school board member Shavar Jeffries (who now heads the charter school behemoth KIPP Foundation), and state senator Teresa Ruiz, among other notable local leaders. Charters weren鈥檛 the only new option鈥攐ther school models, such as magnet high schools (often with entrance requirements) and partner-run small high schools, had gained momentum too.

Some of these schools had notable evidence of improving achievement for Newark students, and it was understandable that they were gaining strong support from local leaders, influential funders, and certainly the families of the nearly 5,500 students who were enrolled in them. Indeed, Zuckerberg鈥檚 gift earmarked a significant amount of funds to growing the charter and small-school footprint. A plan between Christie and Booker that was leaked to the press around this time (causing uproar in the community) revealed that a central focus was to build more charter schools and open new small schools as quickly as possible.

It was clear that the most impactful efforts at improving schools in Newark were actually working around the very system they were trying to improve. And in New Jersey, these new schools were funded on a per-pupil basis; in other words, the money followed the child out of the traditional system and into the public charter system. Logically, this made sense. But in practice, this proliferation of competitors to district-run schools was creating unintended consequences that few wanted to discuss.

During the interview process to become superintendent, though, I was very eager to discuss it. What was the long-term plan to ensure that students who remained in traditional district schools benefited from the cash infusion as much as those who were lucky enough to win school enrollment lotteries? What about the school closures and layoffs that would be inevitable when the footprint of traditional schools shrank? Would charter and new-school growth help bring excitement and excellence to our poorest neighborhoods, or would it give some kids better schools but make the conditions in their communities worse? Wouldn鈥檛 the district end up serving more students who required the highest levels of support? No one seemed to have answers for these tough questions.

I had questions for the anticharter folks too. How could you blame families for exercising choice given the abysmal conditions of many traditional schools? Why were thousands of families on waiting lists? What policies鈥攍abor and otherwise鈥攚ere holding traditional schools back from succeeding? Why hadn鈥檛 those policies been advanced? Were community leaders ready to push the bold reforms necessary for traditional schools to compete with charters? And what should we do about the chronically failing, profoundly underenrolled schools? The answers to these questions were complicated and generally had only to do with adult politics, not what鈥檚 best for kids.

My background and the questions I asked made a lot of people very uncomfortable. Some saw me as 鈥渁ntireform鈥� because I wasn鈥檛 鈥渃harter-friendly鈥� enough, especially with the eyes of the nation now on Newark. At the same time, others felt I was in cahoots with the 鈥減rivatizers鈥� trying to kill public education by supporting new school models. In hindsight, it is easy to see that my story was just an example of a growing and deeply polarized national debate on whether and how we can radically improve the quality of education for low-income families and students of color at scale. Meanwhile, from day one, our team wasn鈥檛 focused on winning favors or promoting specific ideologies. We were focused on great schools for all kids in every neighborhood, by any means necessary.

Building a ‘system of great schools’

Given the perilous state of the city鈥檚 schools, the unrealistic expectations around quick achievement gains, and the pressure from ideologues on all sides, many speculated that the superintendent role wasn鈥檛 doable. But I was inspired by the scale and the ferocious commitment of many leaders in the community.

I interviewed with a large committee and countless stakeholders, who spent hours debating diverse theories about what to do to improve schools. I was also moved by the unusual personal and political alliance formed by Christie, a popular Republican governor in a Democratic state, and Booker, a popular mayor and rising Democratic star, to do something bold. Something was in the air, and it felt like transformation was possible for children and families who had been failed by public systems for generations. I was convinced, perhaps naively, that if we could harness the debates and emotion around what to do, we could lift up a whole city. I remember thinking, There are one hundred schools鈥攚e can do this!

I assembled a diverse team of exemplary senior leaders鈥攕ome known and trusted from within Newark, some with a track record of results elsewhere, and some with a lot of promise who were ready to step up. When I say 鈥渨e鈥� in describing the work in Newark, it is not simply rhetorical. I cannot take sole credit for anything we accomplished in those four years; it was this stunning team that acted as both the architects and the engineers behind the policies and practices we implemented, tirelessly, on behalf of Newark families. I wish I could list them all here by name.

It was time for us to craft our own plan for Newark鈥檚 schools. We started with the theory that the unit of change was the school itself and embraced the idea that what we were building was what my former boss, then New York City Schools chancellor Joel Klein, called 鈥渁 system of great schools,鈥� not a 鈥済reat school system.鈥� This was a subtle but profound distinction, because it meant we were seeking to ensure that there were one hundred excellent schools serving every child in every neighborhood鈥攔egardless of governance structure.

In the long term, we knew that Newark required a citywide master plan that would account for every school building and every child. But in the immediate term, we had obvious and dire issues to address in the district鈥檚 own schools.

First, we needed to set a unifying goal for the district: every child would be college ready. That鈥檚 right, college, not just career鈥攂ecause we believed that choice of higher education should be up to the student, not simply determined by the inadequacy of their preparation, and because Newark families were demanding this.

While college readiness is an obvious educational goal for affluent families and communities, in Newark it was far from obvious that this was attainable or even desirable for most students. But to families, it was obvious. In poll after poll, focus group after focus group, they told us very clearly: they wanted their children to graduate college ready. Moreover, they believed that 鈥渃areer ready鈥� was a euphemism for low expectations. Families felt that academic excellence was a passport out of poverty.

Most parents were with us from day one. The challenge was the well-meaning funders and other influencers who wanted to muddy the waters and talk about everything except whether students could read, write, and do math at grade level.

To make a case for action, we shared baseline achievement data and started to create a sense of urgency around this critical goal. Looking unflinchingly at this data wasn鈥檛 easy, and it made many educators and leaders uncomfortable to acknowledge so blatantly how poorly our schools were preparing our students to succeed in life. When we started sharing actual data about proficiency rates and the number of young people earning diplomas indicative of their mastery of hard content, we started to encounter real pushback, both within and outside the school system. This was a theme I became increasingly familiar with: often what families say they want can be quite different from what those who speak for them are willing to stand for.

Ensuring ‘four-ingredient schools’

With our North Star established, we rolled up our sleeves to improve the district, school by school. By this point in US education reform, it had been nearly thirty years since the release of A Nation at Risk, and there was a large and growing body of research and evidence about high-performing schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. Combined with our team鈥檚 years of on-the-ground school transformation experience, we zeroed in on four basic ingredients that every high-quality school possessed: people, content, culture, and conditions.

To extend the cooking analogy, we knew each ingredient could have a different flavor profile in a different environment. The exact mix of ingredients varies based on context as well. Getting all four ingredients right in a school building is a huge challenge on a good day and nearly impossible the rest of the time. And yet the ingredients themselves are relatively uncontroversial鈥攅ven commonsense鈥攁nd should be the central focus of systems leaders and policymakers.

Our aim: ensure that every NPS school was a four-ingredient school so that we could make steady progress toward college readiness for all. Our philosophy: focus on what works regardless of ideology, which often led to 鈥渢hird-way鈥� solutions鈥攃ombining the best of seemingly disparate views or forging a new path to transcend old, binary thinking. Our mantra: implementation matters.

People

It鈥檚 critical to have the right people in the right seats, from the leadership team to the teachers to mental health professionals to custodial staff. No matter their role, every adult in the building must be equipped with the right mindsets and skill sets to uphold the mission and goals of the school.

Education reform birthed a broad array of nonprofits and policies focused specifically on teacher quality, notably Teach for America (TFA) and TNTP (formerly the New Teacher Project), the latter with its landmark Widget Effect report. We know intuitively the power that a great teacher has, and a growing body of research reinforced this belief, showing us that teachers are the most significant in-school factor determining a child鈥檚 level of achievement. Further, the most significant factor in getting great teachers in every classroom is the quality of the principal. Meanwhile, author Amanda Ripley showed us that in Korea, master teachers are treated like rock stars, which is hardly the case here in the United States.

Partly because of my experience working on the talent side and the emerging research about the strong correlation between school leaders and student achievement, we focused on leadership from day one in Newark. I鈥檝e never been to a great school with a mediocre principal, and I have never been to a failing school with a terrific principal (except perhaps at the very beginning of a turnaround). Within two years, we had replaced nearly one-quarter of our principals through aggressive recruiting and selection, giving preference to Newarkers and leaders who not only knew instruction but thought of themselves as community organizers and change agents.

We took a page from New York City鈥檚 playbook, enacting a 鈥渕utual consent鈥� policy that allowed principals to select teachers aligned to their school鈥檚 goals, as opposed to having them force-placed according to seniority. We adopted a new teacher evaluation system that required more evidence-based classroom observations and feedback, taking a page from Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her team鈥檚 work in the District of Columbia. We trained and empowered principals to hold teachers accountable when they failed to uphold expectations鈥攁nd we had their back when teachers needed to be removed. We created 鈥渃areer ladders鈥� for teachers to become leaders without having to leave the classroom, taking a page out of the Baltimore playbook.

As was a consistent theme with our approach in Newark, pursuing and advancing third-way ideas had us making people on all sides of the issues uncomfortable. Many states at this time were starting to use quantitative test score data in teacher evaluations, and New Jersey was eager to follow suit. However, my team and I felt that the science for such 鈥渧alue-added鈥� approaches didn鈥檛 hold up when it came to determining the effectiveness of individual teachers. We took a lot of flak from hardline education reformers, who had become fixated on using test scores as a shortcut to accountability and who worried that our questioning the use of test scores in teacher evaluations would water down reform efforts more broadly since Newark was such a high-profile example. But not only did we feel that using the value-added approach in teacher evaluations would be unfair to teachers, we also knew that including such a poison pill in our new evaluation plan would create a backlash that could sabotage the entire effort.

To help noncharter schools accelerate the 鈥減eople鈥� ingredient, we negotiated what was widely considered an ambitious contract with Newark teachers. We were able to find agreement with both the local and national teachers鈥� unions on contentious issues such as freezing pay for teachers who were ineffective; on providing bonuses for high performers working in hard-to-staff subjects; on expediting firing for the small number of teachers caught doing egregious things; and on finding pathways for individual schools to innovate outside the four corners of the contract. We also asked the state to grant us a waiver from traditional tenure laws so that we could consider quality alongside tenure when making decisions about whom to retain as we set about the necessary downsizing.

Despite agreeing to key labor reforms after more than two hundred hours at the bargaining table, some in the Newark Teachers Union and their national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, vociferously advocated against them within weeks of the contract being ratified by an overwhelming majority of teachers. Both groups had a long track record of preserving some of the sacred cows of labor negotiations with teachers: seniority-based placement, infallibility of teachers with tenure (regardless of what they do), and resistance to any form of accountability鈥攏o matter how nuanced. Meanwhile, we found many of these ideas to be popular among everyday teachers, who told us the quality of the teacher in the classroom next door is a factor in whether or not they want to stay at a school. In fact, research shows teachers want access to high-quality curricula, comprehensive assessment systems, and the ability to collaborate with colleagues. As the granddaughter of a union organizer and as a strong believer in collective bargaining, I was pushing largely because I believed then 鈥� and still believe now鈥攖hat teachers鈥� unions need to evolve to become part of the solution or they will become obsolete.

We also had to completely restructure and reimagine the central office to be in service to schools and families. This required breaking senior leaders into new teams and inviting them to clearly articulate how they would enable the four school-level ingredients. It also meant crafting clear plans with goals aligned with good management and coaching鈥攏ot simply doing what had always been done. Many rose to the occasion and embraced the opportunity for clarity and coaching. Some didn鈥檛. This was another necessary and politically fraught task. Newark Public Schools was one of the biggest employers in the city, so many staff on the central team were connected to a local politician, vendor, or influencer who had their back if their job was in jeopardy, regardless of whether or not the job was necessary or they were doing a good job.

Content

A high-quality school needs high-quality and culturally competent curricula. It also needs frameworks, protocols, and data that drive great instruction and continuous improvement. As computer programmers like to say, 鈥淕arbage in, garbage out.鈥� This 鈥渃ontent鈥� ingredient is all about replacing that 鈥済arbage鈥� content with engaging and carefully crafted content.

I started in Newark about a year after the Common Core State Standards had become a force nationally and the same month that New Jersey adopted a version of them. It was good timing, because I have long believed in fewer, clearer, more rigorous standards, as opposed to the laundry list I was handed as a young teacher in California. Common Core gave us an unambiguous and evidence-based target. It also served as a catalyst to scrutinize our curricula with a more rigorous lens.

The research here is undeniable; high-quality instructional materials are critical to ensuring that students are truly internalizing difficult content. Historically, though, we had all underinvested in this area in the early reforms after A Nation at Risk. A lot of us made the mistake of keeping a hyperfocus on teachers, which indulged an assumption that if we had a perfect person in every classroom, they could invent brilliant content from scratch. Fortunately, the introduction of common standards forced the issue and led to game-changing work by leaders like John King and his team in New York to develop what would become the EngageNY curriculum. Many education advisors and publishers have caught on, and there are far more 鈥済ood enough鈥� options out there, but there are still not enough.

We also were informed by systemic approaches to 鈥渕anaged instruction鈥� like efforts in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the Success for All initiative in Los Angeles, and Newark鈥檚 own NorthStar Academies (a charter network). These reforms, often literally telling teachers what to teach and how to teach minute to minute, yielded some impressive results. But they also predated important reforms around teacher quality. Our team aimed to blend the best of both by making 鈥済ood enough鈥� choices about curricula, creating spaces for teachers to use existing scope and sequences and lesson plans but also building the capacity of teachers to use data and knowledge of their classrooms to adjust.

High-quality instructional materials are an ingredient that is hard to get right when you are working only at the school or small network level. Scale is your friend. These decisions are better made at a system level, where content experts can dedicate the necessary time to addressing academic needs and cultural contexts, as well as coherence and alignment between the plethora of different curricula and assessments. It is also the area that, at the time in Newark, brought the most consensus. We did 鈥渢each-ins鈥� for administrators, educators, influencers, and families who all really seemed to get and support the mandate for good, rigorous content that was consistent across the city.

As I write this, the country has been embroiled in a resurgence of culture wars around what we teach in our classrooms. It鈥檚 unfortunate, considering that this content ingredient was actually a rare point of local and national consensus not that long ago. The current political climate adds an unwelcome layer of complexity for systems leaders to battle.

Culture

We know from research that schools with intentionally curated environments characterized by high standards alongside high support produce better student outcomes. Students learn healthy habits, and the school community has well-established values and expectations. Norms and protocols prevent incidents, and when incidents happen, adults minimize shame and exclusion to keep students learning. In these schools, there is joy and choice.

From day one in Newark, we focused on the seminal research work and promising practices that had emerged, connecting how kids feel, how adults feel, and student outcomes. Years after comparing student achievement results to staff, student, and family survey responses, researchers Tony Bryk and Barbara Schneider found that the schools with high levels of trust were far more likely to get beat-the-odds results than their counterparts. Economists like Ron Ferguson and social policy experts like Christopher Jenks found a direct correlation between adult expectations, student surveys, and student outcomes. Though controversial, it is also no surprise to me that recent research has shown student surveys can predict student achievement as well as teacher evaluations. When young people say things like, 鈥淢y teacher doesn鈥檛 stop until I get it鈥� or, 鈥淢y teacher believes I can understand anything,鈥� or, 鈥淲hen my teacher asks me how I am doing, I believe s/he wants to know,鈥� we know those students will do better. Jeannie Oakes鈥檚 Keeping Track showed very explicitly how adult biases and expectations can have a negative impact on student achievement.

Relatedly, an area where I have seen some of the greatest challenges for adults in establishing and preserving culture is in response to conflict and disruptive incidents. How we handle student discipline, struggle, and conflict is where adult biases show up the most. Black students are four times as likely to be suspended than their White peers, often for the same behaviors. Black students make up one-third of school-based arrests, though they are only 16 percent of the student population. Moreover, nationwide, Black boys are almost twice as likely to experience corporal punishment as their White peers, and Black girls are about three times as likely. Adults rate Black girls as 鈥渓ess innocent鈥� than their White peers, with damning implications. Students with disabilities are far more likely to receive exclusionary discipline for subjective things like 鈥渄isrespect鈥� and 鈥渋nsubordination.鈥� This is a problem not only from an equity and justice lens but also from a student achievement standpoint. Often students who need the most support and time on task are being excluded the most. Students can鈥檛 learn when they feel shame and helplessness. So it is no surprise to me that data shows that the relationship between the discipline gap and achievement is more than correlative鈥攊t is also causal.

The research squared with our team鈥檚 lived experience in Newark. Traditional schools like
Chancellor Avenue Elementary School and Sussex Avenue Elementary School, charter schools

like KIPP Spark Academy and North Star Academy鈥檚 Alexander Street Elementary School, and partner schools like Bard Early College got this ingredient right, and their results showed it. Adults, kids, families, and community partners rallied together around a common vision and values鈥攁nd shared expectations and norms at the school reinforced them. Their results showed how critical it is to build a collective culture of high expectations and high support.

For these reasons, we hired administrators who showed skill in building culture and partnering with families. We created an entire central-office team focused on student well-being and discipline and charged them with building the capacity of schools to create environments where all kids would thrive and to respond to incidents skillfully. We reinvented the role of school resource officer and hosted weeklong restorative practice institutes that brought together student leaders, administrators, families, teachers, and police officers.

We made progress, but admittedly, the playbook on culture is harder to run for many reasons. Too often, discussions about what student culture should feel like are preachy, ideological, or theoretical鈥攄evoid of practical, research-based, promising practices. Building culture is far from a paint-by-numbers task. Cultures that are simply cheap forms of imitation, are inauthentic, or are misaligned to the needs of a particular community don鈥檛 create the conditions for achievement. Frequently, we think about individual tactics for establishing and preserving culture, such as specific expectations or restorative circles, but not about how they all fit together, and this leads to cultures that feel disjointed and incoherent. Effective cultures don鈥檛 feel the same in every school, but they do share key components. This is nuanced and hard to teach to administrators. At a systems level approaches to this ingredient often devolve into compliance lists and checklists. Further, the culture work requires us to surface and address adult biases about what kids can accomplish and what is considered 鈥渄angerous鈥� behavior, and this can cause real discomfort and resistance.

Conditions

This ingredient is all about strong operations and infrastructure. The building is clean, well equipped, and well run. The trains run on time. You have the facilities, management structures, and funds to support learning, and you have the funding, supplies, and technology to support all of the other ingredients of a high-quality school.

While setting the right culture creates a social and emotional environment where both students and adults can thrive, it is important to simultaneously address the physical environment and the day-to-day operations. It may not be as compelling or sexy as the other ingredients, but none of the other ingredients of a strong school or system can succeed if we don鈥檛 address the conditions in which our children learn and our teachers teach. In Newark, we had a lot of work to do on this ingredient.

When I started in Newark, Malcolm X Shabazz High School had a river running through its fourth floor on rainy days. Many schools didn鈥檛 have air conditioning, in a city where average temperatures reach above a humid ninety degrees for months. Some schools weren鈥檛 even wired for internet access, and only a few had laptops to check out to students for the day.

Local leaders openly talked about a 鈥渞olling start鈥� at the beginning of the school year, which referred to the fact that it took weeks to sort out the basics: enrollment, special education schedules and services, buses, and even books. Honestly, I had never heard of a system where instruction didn鈥檛 start on day one.

And while I鈥檝e never bought into the idea that market forces are a panacea for improving school quality (and research suggests I鈥檓 right), you can bet my team took note when our colleagues at KIPP would make an overnight run to the hardware store for window A/C units to survive a Newark heat wave, while we were forced to navigate a maze of vendor regulations and nepotistic relationships just to open a window. Trust me, there鈥檚 an entire chapter to be written on reforming procurement and purchase ordering alone.

Some of these intolerable conditions were due to bad public policy and some were because of poor management. My team and I would say we could tell if a school was getting results by how visitors were greeted at the door (if at all) and how quickly families could get the answer to whatever they were asking. When organizations are well run, their primary constituents鈥� in our case, students, families, and community members鈥攁re at the forefront of everyone鈥檚 mind. This service orientation is shared by noninstructional staff members, from the custodial staff to the crossing guard to the budget team. All are invested in the mission, goals, and shared values. We created school operations managers (similar to how some charter networks like KIPP have created business operations managers) to attend to the operational needs of the school. At the time, this got me in trouble with the administrators鈥� union (because I was seen as encroaching on district administrator roles and jobs). Even today our approach to operations is considered innovative, which just shows how little we prioritize the conditions in our schools.

Getting the conditions for achievement at every school in Newark was an expensive and backbreaking task, and progress was excruciatingly slow. Bureaucracy at every level鈥攍ocal, state, and federal鈥攎ade our vision of goal-based budgeting, twenty-first-century facilities, nutritional food, and high-quality customer service feel nearly impossible on some days, even with exemplary people working on it. When academics and policymakers talk about disrupting systemic inequity, rethinking our entire system of education, or rising to the grave challenges initially posed by A Nation at Risk, they鈥檇 do well to spend a lot more time talking about basic operations. We need an entire movement to break the bureaucracy that is crippling school infrastructure.

The One Newark plan

While establishing a focus on college readiness and building four-ingredient schools was our primary focus right out of the gate, we knew we had to make progress on a citywide plan that addressed the schools beyond our purview. Looking at the full picture in Newark, you saw that everyone鈥攍ocal early childhood providers, the district, third-party school operators, private schools, individually run charters, and large charter networks鈥攚as doing their own thing, and the unintended consequences of this lack of coordination were becoming more evident and unsustainable every day.

From our earliest school visits, we could see that the poorest neighborhood schools were emptying out and becoming concentrated with the highest-need students and the lowestquality staff. Historic buildings were crumbling while new facilities were being built, sometimes down the street or downtown. Supply and demand were misaligned: for example, the number of magnet high school seats requiring a certain level of academic attainment far exceeded the number of eighth-graders prepared to meet them. The diversity and variety of school models wasn鈥檛 materializing; with all the new schools, we weren鈥檛 actually providing a lot of choice, just more flavors of 鈥渘o excuses鈥� ice cream at the elementary level and a bunch of run-of-the-mill high schools.

Meanwhile, every year, including my first, our district had to cut about $50 million. While there was certainly a lot of bloated bureaucracy to streamline, more than 80 percent of that money was wrapped up in people. Newark Public Schools employs many Newarkers in a city with double the national poverty rate.

With every set of data that we unearthed and every school that I visited, the pit in my stomach grew as I saw the magnitude of the challenges. Keeping open too many schools without enough students meant that thousands of Newark鈥檚 students were attending schools that were crumbling, not just physically but educationally. We were spending more money per pupil than almost every other district in the United States, with terrible results. And there was no denying that the rapid growth of the charter movement further complicated the problem.

Past district leaders鈥攁nd many city leaders鈥攙iewed charters as 鈥渢he enemy.鈥� Families able to navigate the charter lotteries were fleeing the traditional system, and thousands more were on waiting lists. Who could blame them, given that many charters were radically outperforming traditional schools? As money followed students out of the traditional schools and into the charters, the available resources to revive these schools or attract talent were being stretched increasingly thin鈥攁nd the trend was likely to continue. Charter leaders planned to grow the sector from serving 5 percent of students to serving more than 40 percent, which would mean $250 million of funds leaving the district with no quick or painless way to shrink infrastructure or union-guaranteed jobs. Seeing that dozens of district schools were dying a slow death, with some of the city鈥檚 neediest students trapped in them, I knew something had to be done鈥攁nd soon.

As a city, we had to ask ourselves: 鈥淚s it even possible for every child in Newark to have access to a school that meets their needs? Even those children facing the longest odds?鈥� Note that this is a fundamentally different question than 鈥淐an we get some kids in this community access to great schools?鈥� That framing suggests we are not responsible for all of the children in our community, only those whom our school model can accommodate. It is also a fundamentally different question than 鈥淐an we build more great schools?鈥� That question ignores the community context within which the school exists, and it fails to address very real and sometimes serious consequences when we focus on building some great schools and letting others fail. We were seeing that play out in Newark already.

Our team had no choice but to stare down these questions, which led us to some unconventional and controversial answers. The first thing we had to do: try to rise above political arguments rooted in ideology and self-interest about what type of school models should exist. There were about a hundred schools in Newark. We knew we would get to excellence more quickly if we had a variety of governance structures: traditional, charter, magnet, partner run, and hybrid. But we also knew we couldn鈥檛 simply let a thousand flowers bloom and allow others to die, especially when those vulnerable schools were serving our students with the highest need. We also knew that the community deserved excellence citywide.

Just as always, our team was guided by national promising practices and research. Only this time, we were limited by a dearth of examples in which systems leaders thought about the entire community. So we pored over our own data: student enrollment trends across governance models, overall city population trends, facilities assessments, and (of course) student outcomes. We fanned out and hosted more than a hundred community-based meetings with faith-based leaders, nonprofit executives, families in struggling schools, families in highperforming schools, charter advocates, charter operators, private schools, local funders, elected officials, union leaders, and early childhood providers. We began to socialize the idea that we needed one citywide plan across governance structures, as well as the harsh reality that the district鈥檚 footprint had to shrink. We wanted to find a way to preserve the best of the new-schools movement while also addressing some of the unacceptable consequences of its uncoordinated growth.

This process鈥攐ver the course of about a year鈥攍ed to a comprehensive plan we called One Newark. The plan was more than just a collection of policies and tactics. It was carefully architected with a clear and accessible framework to communicate honestly and transparently with an extremely broad array of stakeholders and get buy-in across the city. We knew that the best plan in the world would mean nothing if we didn鈥檛 tell a coherent story that motivated change.

The plan opened with three core values to drive our collective decision-making: equity, excellence, and efficiency:

• Excellence: We must ensure that every child in every neighborhood has access to a 鈥渇our-ingredient鈥� school as quickly as possible and that no kid is in a failing school.

• Equity: We must ensure that all students鈥攊ncluding those who are facing the longest odds鈥攁re on the pathway to college and a twenty-first-century career.

• Efficiency: We must ensure that every possible dollar is invested in staff and priorities that make a positive difference for all students.

It was followed with seven focus areas, which we mapped onto the letters in the word 鈥渟uccess鈥� to send a clear signal of optimism and affirmation:

• (S)ystemwide Accountability: Envision and publish a standardized approach to tracking school and system success and progress across all schools (district, charter, and provider run).

• (U)niversal Enrollment: Launch a straightforward, user-friendly enrollment system that empowers our students and families to choose the school (charter, partner, or district) that best meets the student鈥檚 needs.

• (C)itywide Facilities and Technology Revolution: Create a bold plan to operationalize twenty-first-century learning environments for all students, ensuring no vacant buildings.

• (C)ommon Core Mastery and PARCC Readiness: Lead the nation in the number of students living below the poverty level (especially those currently struggling) who make progress toward Common Core mastery and readiness for PARCC, the standardized test aligned to those standards.

• (E)quity and Access for All Students: Increase the number of high-quality seats for all students, especially those currently in low-performing schools.

• (S)hared Vision for Excellent Schools: Cultivate demand for one hundred excellent schools and the groundswell of support for the changes necessary to get there.

• (S)ystemic Conditions for Success: Radically transform the district itself to ensure that it is a high-performing organization for years to come.

While the backbone of the overall picture and the building blocks of the plan were emerging in the spring of 2013, we didn鈥檛 feel we had enough operational capacity or community momentum to implement the plan that fall. Instead, we continued to engage, discuss, and refine the plan鈥檚 tenets with diverse stakeholders. We launched headlong into implementation in the winter of 2013鈥�14.

We knew from the start that we needed a fair way to compare school quality across model types to meet the goals of our citywide vision of excellence for all. I鈥檇 seen firsthand how smart ways of tracking progress could drive good change in New York City under former mayor Mike Bloomberg, and we knew of years of research by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and others about the correlation between accountability and student outcomes.

We started publishing 鈥渇amily-friendly鈥� snapshots 鈥� across both district and charter schools 鈥� so that community members could see how their schools were doing in comparison to schools with similar populations. We looked at overall proficiency but also at growth, critical in a city like Newark with low rates across the board. We also compared schools with similar student populations to one another. There was no question that students at schools like Shabazz High School and South Street Elementary School were in much higher need than students at Science Park High School and Ann Street School. Success was possible, of course, but harder鈥攁nd we needed a fair accountability system to make decisions and create the right incentives.

We created a simple red, yellow, and green system so that the community could see the landscape clearly. 鈥淩ed schools鈥� were low-proficiency, low-growth schools. Green were high proficiency and high growth (e.g., we didn鈥檛 want selective high schools to recruit 鈥減roficient鈥� students and fail to grow them to 鈥渉ighly proficient鈥�). Yellow schools were 鈥渙n the move鈥� (low proficiency, high growth) or 鈥渢o watch鈥� (high proficiency, low growth). The color-coding was clear and intuitive, and many in the community started talking about 鈥渘o red schools.鈥�

We placed an emphasis on transparent data about how schools were doing with students in poverty, students with disabilities, and English learners. We created standard measures 鈥� across district and charter schools鈥攖o report on student retention. Up to this point, accountability systems implemented under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 focused almost exclusively on proficiency, which unfortunately incentivized schools to enroll and retain students who were likely to be successful and to subtly counsel out (e.g., 鈥測ou are not a good fit for this school鈥�) or explicitly push out (e.g., through suspensions and expulsions) students who were harder to serve. We couldn鈥檛 afford to make the same mistake.

People from all sides fought us on this level of transparency 鈥� the unions, some charter schools (which weren鈥檛 obligated to share their data with us), and some funders who worried we were reducing children to numbers. But many families and policymakers embraced the information. There鈥檚 no perfect system, but there was no way to make a citywide plan without a decent measure of school quality.

We performed detailed enrollment analysis and defined the need for a common definition of a 鈥渕inimum viable school.鈥� From a funding standpoint, schools with fewer than five hundred students are hard to sustain with a staffing model that ensures things like appropriate class size, electives, teacher preparation times, and staff to attend to running operations. Newark had a lot of 鈥渞ed鈥� schools that were also not financially viable, and many of them were in the poorest neighborhoods.

We also looked at demand data鈥攚ho was applying to charters and from what neighborhoods, who was seeking new small high schools and from what neighborhoods, and which neighborhoods were growing and which were shrinking.

The picture was becoming increasingly clear: the need for a course correction was long overdue. We had traditional schools where 80 percent of families were on charter school waiting lists, but the district鈥檚 resistance to collaboration and the charters鈥� insistence on growing only one grade level each year meant large-scale closures and consolidations were inevitable.

The district had too many elementary schools overall, due to a population decrease, neighborhood shifts, and charter growth. We didn鈥檛 have enough early learning centers to meet the increased demand. We had too many selective high schools. Most of the new small high schools being incubated downtown were serving families from other wards, while iconic and historic high schools were emptying out. Overall, we had too many old buildings that were crumbling due to underinvestment and age, and some of them simply weren鈥檛 fixable. At one point, the district was paying more than $1 million just for scaffolding on vacant buildings that were never going to reopen. The picture was bleak. We had to make some hard decisions.

We decided to be radically transparent about our findings and the implications in a proposed ward-by-ward plan. Some charters should take over existing schools with high demand, keep families who opted in, and keep the buildings and the school name, instead of simply continuing to build new schools one grade at a time. Some elementary schools needed to convert to early learning centers. Some small high schools that were performing well needed to move into our comprehensive high schools, and some underperforming partner-run high schools needed to close. Magnets had to change their enrollment process. And some buildings had to be shut鈥攕ome condemned, some repurposed, and some sold, potentially to charters.

Another anchor of the One Newark plan was ensuring that every family had equal access to choice. Both psychologically and practically, it didn鈥檛 make sense for one-third of families to get what they wanted and the rest to get what was left over. For starters, this dynamic was creating an almost civil war鈥搇ike atmosphere, with charter and noncharter families pitted against each other and magnet and nonmagnet families screaming at each other in meetings. Also, one goal of establishing high-performing schools in high-poverty neighborhoods is to feed the groundswell of belief that kids can achieve. Newark鈥檚 choice system was helping create a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure in the noncharter schools.

We had to find a way for the idea of choice to lift all boats, but it wasn鈥檛 happening鈥攁nd it can鈥檛 happen without good public policy and collective action. I鈥檝e had many school choice advocates dispute this. Some ideologues will have you believe that the mere presence of competition somehow magically raises everyone鈥檚 game. It certainly didn鈥檛 happen that way in Newark, nor in the dozens of systems I have worked in since.

This is where universal enrollment came into play. Cities like New Orleans and Denver had implemented systems where families could access a common application instead of having to apply to and navigate multiple lotteries.43 We built on what they had learned (even flying in officials from both systems to participate in community panels) and took it a step further. We envisioned and implemented a system where all schools鈥攃harter and traditional鈥攎arketed themselves on the same timeline, using citywide approaches, and alongside our common accountability system. All families could access the system and apply to all schools. An algorithm gave preference to kids in the neighborhood, followed by kids in poverty, then kids with disabilities, and then everyone else at random.

It was a game changer. Now all schools were required to think about how to market themselves and own their quality, or lack thereof. By year two, more than three-quarters of the families of kindergartners and ninth-graders were using the system. At one point, we opened a family support center to help families exercise choice. We had actually planned for a soft launch, but word got out and more than a thousand families showed up on the first day, and the situation almost devolved into chaos. While our critics crowed about our operational failure鈥攁nd it was indeed a failure鈥攊t also showed how much family demand there was for choice and quality. This is one of the hundreds of examples I鈥檝e had throughout my career that defies the ridiculous stereotype that poor families don鈥檛 care about education.

The universal enrollment system may have been hardest on some members of Newark鈥檚 political elite who were used to the benefits afforded to them in an unfair, transactional system. I recall one meeting in which a prominent official鈥攑reviously a supporter of mine鈥攜elled, 鈥淵ou made a liar out of me! I told my cousin I could get her kid into this school!鈥�

We had other 鈥渓ift all boats鈥� strategies. In partnership with the Newark Trust for Education, we created shared campus grants so that charter and district schools in the same building were incentivized to envision projects that helped their students and staff collaborate on schoolwide and community improvement projects. We asked charter teams to lead professional development for some of our turnaround schools on things like comprehensive approaches to instruction where many of them had more robust practices than we did. We created a collective action team of special educators across district and charter schools to help share and promote promising practices.

The plan meant a lot of changes for a lot of people. Some shuttered buildings were historic, and even though it was clear these buildings needed to have a divestment plan, community elders who remembered their heyday didn鈥檛 want to hear it, understandably. Many charter leaders and their supporters dug in their heels on their model of growing slowly and where they wanted to grow according to optimal facilities, regardless of the consequences. The idea of small schools within high schools鈥攚hich had been successfully implemented in New York at scale鈥攚as new to Newark and, therefore, scary for many who had found their pet school to support. Some local and national funders who were excited about ribbon cuttings and smaller projects simply didn鈥檛 want to get involved in the far messier project of citywide progress.

Our team knew that the tenets of the plan were bold, unconventional, and controversial and that the politics were going to be tough to navigate. Choice, charters, labor reforms, and teacher excellence polled well. Laying off Newarkers and teachers and 鈥渃losing鈥� traditional schools or turning them over to highly successful charters were wildly unpopular. But to have the plan succeed citywide, you couldn鈥檛 have one without the other.

To add a deeper degree of difficulty, while the plan was emerging and leading up to the official launch, we suffered a series of seismic political blows at the worst possible moment. In September 2013, the Bridgegate scandal broke and increasingly sidelined Governor Christie. My team went from coordinating with his team and political allies in Newark (he had a lot)

on a weekly basis to going months with virtually no communication. Shortly thereafter, then senator Frank Lautenberg tragically passed away. Mayor Booker, who had also been an active and strong supporter of the plan and was working hard to build momentum around it, announced he was running for that US Senate seat. This not only effectively took him off the field from a local political standpoint, but also created a scenario where he needed the support of local officials and union leaders who opposed many parts of the plan. His announcement also spurred the need for an earlier-than-expected mayoral election where the leading candidates spent considerable time spewing hatred about charters and about me personally (although backstage and publicly, they had previously supported both). Shortly thereafter, Commissioner Cerf resigned. To use a sports analogy: the entire offensive line left the field.

The overall approach was comprehensive, and it had to be to ensure that none of our kids were trapped in failing schools, the district didn鈥檛 go bankrupt, communities weren鈥檛 living with vacant buildings, and the city was on a path to success. I described the plan to author Dale Russakoff as 鈥渢hree-dimensional chess鈥� in an effort to convey why all the pieces had to happen at one time and couldn鈥檛 be phased. There were too many interdependent parts to a very complex system, and the stakes couldn鈥檛 be higher. Unfortunately, in her book about Newark, The Prize, which went on to become a bestseller, this quote fed an inaccurate portrayal of me as a top-down, cold technocrat鈥攁 narrative that was taking shape across much of the media coverage about our work in Newark. It couldn鈥檛 have been further from the truth鈥攖he emotional pieces of what needed to happen were not lost on me or the team. I lived with my husband and baby son in Newark and had conversations with neighbors in grocery stores and local watering holes on a daily basis. It all felt so heavy, but also necessary.

Results and lessons

During my tenure and the subsequent years under Cerf, our district teams improved outcomes for students in every neighborhood and every age group鈥攆rom early childhood to high school.

In early childhood, we secured a $7 million Head Start grant48 (only the second district in the country to do so) to add more than one thousand early childhood seats. We brought early childhood standards to life and sounded the alarm to focus on the importance of high-quality early learning. Newark went from having fewer than half of our residents eligible for free early childhood programs (which was most families) to enrolling nearly 90 percent.

In 2015, the Center on Reinventing Public Education named Newark as the number-one district in the country for high-poverty, high-performance elementary schools that beat the odds. By 2019, more than one-third of Black students attended schools that exceeded the state average, compared with 10 percent in 2011. A study conducted by Harvard University showed across-the-board increases in reading and initially slow but then impressive gains in math. The number of good schools and schools 鈥渙n the move鈥� grew every year due to our district-run turnaround approach, charter conversion schools, and some outright closures and consolidations. Newark was among the top four cities in the country for student outcomes of Black students living in poverty.

The citywide graduation rate rose 14 points, closing the gap with the state average by 7 percentage points鈥攚ith almost double the percentage of students graduating having passed the state exit exam. About 87 percent of Newark graduates returned for a second college term, far exceeding national averages given the high poverty rates.

And we saw signs that the overall community鈥攄espite the political rancor we encountered 鈥� was starting to believe in the 鈥渟ystem of great schools.鈥� For the first time in decades, student enrollment was increasing overall in Newark, as was the population of the city.

Our labor agreement, too, was a long-term success. More than a decade later, most of these terms still exist in the contract today, and an independent study of the agreement found that the 鈥渘ew evaluation system is perceived as valid, accurate, fair, and useful.鈥� This suggests that its durability is not just due to luck and that the approach could and should be replicated elsewhere.

Similarly, universal enrollment still exists in a modified form to this day and is used by nearly 20 percent of families. I believe managed school choice was starting to play a role in dissipating the city鈥檚 deeply concentrated poverty.

Despite these significant accomplishments, we knew from day one that we would not succeed in Newark unless everyone, from the grandmother at a profoundly struggling school to the dad at a magnet school to the aunt at a charter school, believed things could be different 鈥� better for everyone, for Newarkers. We knew we had to build a completely new normal and that some of that work involved helping the entire community see that it didn鈥檛 have to accept the failed status quo. We exerted a lot of effort that, in the end, fell short of generating the kind of collective momentum we needed. The reasons are complicated but instructive.

Because we felt responsible for every child in Newark, we engaged all families, charter and district, with equal vigor. This was a good and mission-aligned approach, but it was almost impossible to execute, given the tensions (both perceived and very real) inherent in growing the charter footprint. The conundrum is perfectly exemplified by the mother who called in to ask me a question on-air during a local NPR show. She had just dropped off her kids at North Star Academy Charter School, she said, because she needed them to have access to excellence. At the same time, she was on her way to my office to picket against me on behalf of her nephew, who had lost his job as a school aide due to the smaller footprint of the district.

Our strategy all along was to be up front about failure and embrace accountability. Again, while our radical transparency seemed like a good idea on its face, it turned out that a lot of people don鈥檛 want to hear their school is failing鈥攏o matter how carefully crafted the message. Also, while some community members were grateful that someone was 鈥渇inally telling the truth鈥� (an actual quote from a community meeting I led at a failing school), others were understandably angry. Our team was on the receiving end of the grief and loss that result from telling the patient they have stage IV cancer when someone should have caught it years ago.

We were lucky to have a popular Republican governor in Christie and a Democratic mayor in Booker, who teamed up to create a real mandate for change and put a laser focus on what鈥檚 best for students. This was a tremendous asset (and seems unthinkable in today鈥檚 environment) but also a challenge. Some Newarkers resented the involvement of the state (particularly in managing the school system directly) and, by extension, me. And local officials fought even harder to exert influence, sometimes over off-the-mark things, to show they were relevant.

We prioritized students who were at the back of the line. Our universal enrollment system gave preference to students from the poorest neighborhoods and those with disabilities. We revamped the magnet school admissions process to look at multiple factors for student admissions at the central office. These were good decisions for children, families, and equity, but it also put us in the crosshairs of power brokers who were used to getting what they wanted and considered coveted seats theirs to give out. They also had access to the biggest microphones and would use them to mobilize the community against our efforts.

Some charter school operators and their supporters mobilized their constituents in opposition to these citywide efforts as well. They wanted to grow where they wanted to grow, not necessarily in alignment with supply-and-demand patterns or the overall plan. Many (not all) were content to crow about how much better they were than the district without digging into what percentage of 鈥渉igh-need鈥� students they were serving鈥攃onveniently avoiding an apples-to-apples comparison that was much more complicated. They enjoyed promises from politicians and funders that were out of alignment with the One Newark collective plan. Many liked running their own lotteries because they had more control over admissions; some would say things like 鈥渨e don鈥檛 offer that kind of special education program.鈥� Also, many had legitimate concerns about turning over enrollment processes to a district that had been underperforming and had actively sought to extinguish them for many years.

Charters weren鈥檛 the only group stuck in their own goals and plans鈥攁nd at least most of their concerns were in service of building quality schools. School-based partners and vendors, local nonprofits, funders, and other leaders all had their individual projects, schools, and pet issues. The incentives to keep doing one鈥檚 own thing were profound. I was stuck in a daily loop of explicit and often threatening demands to support individual agendas鈥攎any of them having nothing to do with what was best for individual neighborhoods and schools, let alone the collective. A local reporter continually nagged me about shoring up my 鈥渘atural allies.鈥� I remember wondering who they were. Breaking up monoplies and pursuing third-way ideas is a lonely endeavor, particularly in cities like Newark, with its transactional, machine politics.

Well-resourced forces of opposition spent a considerable amount of money spreading misinformation and actively attacking me personally. They made expensive sandwich boards, posters, and fliers with my face on it. In one image, the word 鈥淟iar鈥� was printed as if it were carved into my forehead and dripping blood. It was an open secret that they hired a full-time blogger to write stories about our work and about me personally (some with twists of the truth and some with outright lies). The blog was well formatted, looked like a real newspaper, and generally contained kernels of truth that were leaked from inside. Ads were purchased to place those stories in actual newspapers so that they looked like real news. Canvassers were hired to distribute leaflets about false school closures, and social media stalkers posted where my family and I were eating dinner.

As important as we knew collective buy-in was to our success and as much time as we invested in it, our team was ultimately not successful in creating a groundswell quickly enough. We certainly had moments, but not enough. The One Newark plan should have been envisioned before the unintended consequences were at our doorstep. Maybe that would have given us more time. Surely, I was the wrong messenger: a White woman from out of town who represented the system. One Newark could have been a third-party entity with representatives from various sectors and a trusted, local leader. I thought this all along but failed to get stakeholders to agree and execute quickly enough. Meanwhile, we had to balance the budget and ensure quality in education.

I also clearly made mistakes. My messages were not straightforward and sticky enough. This work, as you can see, is complex and multifaceted, and I could have paid more attention to how to ensure good, proactive, community-friendly communication. I did not lead our team in good enough ways, small and large, to predict and combat misinformation that was rampant and that got even worse as social media exploded during my tenure. The forces for the status quo were organized and mobilized, and we were caught flat-footed. I didn鈥檛 manage the flow of information with nearly enough precision, let alone attend to building my own brand. I made a classic mistake that many leaders have made before me: I presumed that if I did good work and led with authenticity, people would support progress.

More critically, I poured valuable energy into the community without focusing as much as I should have on the community influencers closest to our work at the school level. Since then, I鈥檝e developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to see the community in relation to the system of schools. In figure 1, the center is the school, and the next level out is the families and students (red ring). The next ring is influencers (orange ring)鈥攆olks connected to the school who have direct influence on that specific school. The next ring is community-wide partners (yellow ring)鈥攃ommunity-based agencies and other city agencies like police and child welfare. And the next ring out (green ring) is elected officials and power brokers鈥攆or instance, pastors of large congregations, thought leaders, and community-based organizations serving the city.

We knew it was critical to focus on our families and students, and we knew it was a tremendous amount of our work to build collective action focused on them. I give us high marks for our dogged and strategic work on the red ring. But in retrospect, we spent far too much time with folks in the outermost ring鈥攖he political and power class鈥攁nd not enough with those in the orange and yellow rings. It wasn鈥檛 until nearer the end of my tenure that we started to create a database for each individual school鈥檚 yellow ring. We also made a much more concerted effort to know the civil servants at all of our partner agencies. I came to realize a hard lesson鈥攖hat while the politicians and power brokers confidently spoke for the community, they were often after a political win: a contract, a coveted spot in a school, a policy, or a job for a family member or friend. I wish I could take precious minutes I spent with those in the green ring and reinvest them in the yellow and orange rings.

The painful but informative experiences I had in Newark, along with a long career since then of working with systems leaders across the country, have convinced me that collective action is the missing link for change at the systems and community levels. Sadly, it is also the element I find most commonly reduced to uninspired bumper stickers and is wholly disconnected from the powerful and real work of reform. We talk about 鈥渃ommunity engagement鈥� without honestly defining who the community is. We talk about consensus when real and hard calls have to be made every day about managing access to scarce resources, coveted high-quality seats, and community-based jobs. Many of those decisions can be in direct tension with building a system of great schools in every neighborhood by any means necessary. We interchange concepts of true grassroots organizing with community engagement and sidestep the obvious truth that power brokers and special interest groups have an organized, well-resourced, and often outsized influence on speaking for the community.

Recommendations for systems leaders

While the work we did in Newark has been treated by many in education reform as a critical case study for emerging superintendents and district leaders, it is often told as a cautionary tale of doing too much and ignoring community engagement. What is often lost are the lessons for building a successful 鈥渟ystems of schools.鈥� Fundamentally, the story of the One Newark plan is a story of a district seeking to break out of the shell of its narrow school footprint and hold itself accountable for the educational futures of all its city鈥檚 children. The story of Newark should push all of us to define the role of the 鈥渟ystem鈥� and why it is so critical and yet so difficult to fulfill that mandate for an entire community.

Since A Nation at Risk was published, we鈥檝e had important attempts at systemic reform that focused on specific pieces of the puzzle. Sadly, many of those efforts focused narrowly on individual 鈥渋ngredients鈥� (to use my earlier analogy) but not on the whole recipe, or the whole system.

We鈥檝e had a lot of reforms focused on 鈥渃ommunity engagement鈥� approaches, like the Annenberg Challenge. But those initiatives failed to address the fundamentals of building better schools and didn鈥檛 wrestle with the extremely tricky work of defining community that is illustrated in the Newark example.

We have also seen many efforts to build better individual schools; most of the charter and 鈥渉igh-quality schools鈥濃�� movement has been about that: creating individual proof points without thinking about the layer above the school, let alone the community. New Orleans shows the profound limitations of this strategy, as the city still struggles to figure out the role of the system after watching a bunch of individual charter operators solve some problems and create new and complicated ones. The Newark case study illuminates that while this approach can be vital for building 鈥渇our-ingredient鈥� schools, it will always be insufficient for establishing a holistic system of great schools.

We must focus on creating systems of great schools鈥攏ot great school systems, not individual schools alone, not one piece of a puzzle, not some simplistic version of community engagement. We need to get clear on the roles of leaders at the systems level. In short: the system should manage the incentives, policies, guardrails, and resources to ensure that every child has access to a four-ingredient school by doing four things.

1. Enable ‘four-ingredient’ schools

As discussed above, we have promising practices when it comes to ensuring a gamechanging principal in every school and an excellent educator in every classroom. We know the impact of high-quality instructional materials that are culturally competent. We have proven research on the importance of school culture and handling discipline. We know what conditions have to be in place to enable achievement. Systems leaders should set direction and advocate; procure best-in-class materials; set policy to incentivize districts, schools, and charter management organizations to implement what we know works; and sanction practices antithetical to student progress. As one example, when Mississippi focused on the science of reading, providing best-in-class materials, training, and a way of measuring progress, kids across the state started reading at unprecedented levels. As another example, Nebraska adopted high-quality instructional materials statewide and provided options but also high-quality implementation support. This drove impressive gains in student outcomes.

Too often, cities select a superintendent or states select a commissioner because they are zealously focused on one single ingredient. Sometimes cities and states simply won鈥檛 touch an ingredient because they don鈥檛 want to fight with the union or other interest groups.

Policymakers have a responsibility to ensure that schools can obtain and mix best-in-class ingredients more quickly鈥攖rying to do so one school at a time doesn鈥檛 make sense. A lot of this work happens at the district and network levels, but leaders at all levels must put people in place who understand and are committed to all four ingredients.

2. Ensure quality and equity

Our current system of districts versus charters sadly guarantees that many kids鈥攑articularly those with the most challenges鈥攁re left behind. Policymakers and community leaders should be held accountable for allowing kids and families to fall through the cracks.

Leaders need to step up and raise their hands for being accountable for all kids to access high-quality schools. They need to embrace good enough ways of measuring what that means鈥攊n terms of what students are learning and how they are feeling. Accountability systems need to help families hold schools to a standard of excellence for all kids, including those who consistently fail in all kinds of schools. These accountability systems should be family friendly and public. And they should explicitly shine a light on where inequities show up: fewer Black students having access to AP course and magnet programs, special education students in segregated classrooms with abysmally low student outcomes, inequitable criminalization of student behavior, and kids living in concentrated poverty too often getting the lowest-quality staff. Our new accountability systems should correct for some of the mistakes we made before, from focusing only on proficiency and meaningless graduation rates to treating growth, college-readiness, and retention as critical outcome measures.

Effective accountability systems have incentives that inspire schools and communities to step up. As one recent example, schools that were designated as failing were more than twice as likely to make big gains than those that weren鈥檛. Researchers surmised that this is because the label drove resources and supports where they needed to go鈥攁nd rallied communities to do better. Good accountability systems drive decisions, sometimes hard ones, about redesigning schools, radically changing who runs them and how they are run, and even closing them.

3. Break up bureaucracy

A fundamental way to clear a runway for accelerated school improvement is to actively tear down past practices and federal, state, and local policies that block individual schools from innovating. As one example, school finance formulas are unnecessarily complicated and opaque. Most states have an even worse and more complicated approach to funding facilities and infrastructure. We need more of a 鈥渨hiteboard鈥� approach than one that tweaks decades of dysfunction.

Traditional schools will never be able to 鈥渃ompete鈥� with charters if we don鈥檛 actively tear down the unnecessary bureaucracy in existing schools. As one example, when Klein was New York City Schools chancellor, he had an entire team dedicated to creating one-stop compliance and communication approaches for principals in New York City over multiple years. They shrank thousands and thousands of pages of sometimes competing 鈥渕ustdos鈥� (most of them having nothing to do with serving students better) and still felt there was more to do.

Policymakers and community leaders need to wake up every day wondering what they can do to ensure that people running schools have the time to do the right thing as opposed to managing byzantine policies and procedures from competing departments. We certainly need oversight and compliance, but it must be streamlined and reexamined every year.

4. Create cross-system and community-based solutions

The students who face the most challenges have generally been failed by multiple systems. I have a term for this: students whom systems have failed the most (SSFMs). Statistically, they are likely to be students of color. Too often they are labeled 鈥渟pecial populations鈥� and further marginalized out of classrooms and into separate and unequal programs. Very few schools of any governance structure meet the needs of these young people. Schools鈥攁nd the systems in which they operate鈥攁re consistently failing 20 percent of their most vulnerable students.

Often these students and their families are connected to multiple systems: child welfare, public housing, homeless services, juvenile justice, criminal justice, immigration services, family services, and food programs. Some examples: nearly 90 percent of the juvenile justice population were in foster care at some point in their lives. About one-third of thirteen-toseventeen year-olds experience some sort of homelessness. These students struggle tremendously in school. In other words, we take the kids who鈥攖hrough no choice of their own鈥攈ave been failed by one system and then fail them in another.

In order to truly reverse patterns for students that systems have failed the most, we need crossagency and community-based solutions with school success at the core. Neighborhood-based collaboratives, like the Harlem Children鈥檚 Zone, have produced promising results that we started to scale during Arne Duncan鈥檚 tenure as secretary of education. I鈥檝e had the pleasure of working with teams creating memorandums of agreement between disparate agencies鈥攖he DA鈥檚 office, probation, public housing, and school systems鈥攖o share data and create common family support plans for young people and families connected to multiple systems. We need more out-of-the-box ideas to aggregate services and help students who are the most vulnerable succeed.

Conclusion

The insights and recommendations I鈥檝e shared above are not based on any specific ideology. They were developed out of necessity and refined through years of application and practice across a wide variety of settings鈥攆rom New York to California and many places in between, in both districts and charter networks, in small-school communities, and in the largest cities and states.

It may seem like a lot to tackle, and indeed it is. But if we are to truly transform our systems at scale, we can鈥檛 simply cling to one specific ingredient or hew to a single governance ideology. The surest way to avoid bias and ensure a holistic strategy is to zoom out to the communitylevel goal. Make the community鈥攏ot just one school, network, neighborhood, or district鈥攖he unit of change.

When I arrived in Newark, we started by asking how to ensure one hundred excellent schools to educate every child鈥攊ncluding and especially those who are typically left out of the conversations about excellence. Moreover, how could we do it as quickly as possible (because kids only have one third grade)? Many education reformers at the time were looking for silver bullets鈥攄ebating whether charters are better than traditional schools or what makes the perfect teacher or curriculum. Our approach of stepping back and asking what the shared goal was for the entire community led us down a fundamentally different path. That path was inherently third-way and therefore had us at odds with hard-line choice advocates, status quo defenders, and other rigid ideologues. But it also kept us focused on the community level and (on our good days) prioritizing those members of the community closest to the center of the circle.

Our efforts in Newark stood on the shoulders of emerging research and promising practices from around the country. Our team鈥檚 focus on talent at every level was inspired by work in New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, and in organizations like the New Teacher Project and New Leaders for New Schools. We took lessons from Student Achievement Partners, New York State, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and high-performing charters when it came to focusing on high-quality instructional materials. Our focus on high expectations and high support cultures was informed by research on achievement motivation, the intersection of adult expectations and student outcomes, and Chicago鈥檚 work on measuring student and family satisfaction. Our citywide plan built on work from the new small schools
movement in Chicago, New York, and Denver and universal enrollment in New Orleans and Denver. Throughout, we aimed to take the best of what was working elsewhere and ensure that it met the unique needs of our comprehensive citywide plan in Newark.

When leaders make the commitment to put community at the forefront of their work, they will encounter a number of challenges. In closing, I鈥檒l offer four guidelines to help us move forward.

First, think about the system of schools, not the school system. As I said before, this sounds like merely a semantic difference, but don鈥檛 be fooled. Anytime we find ourselves putting aside what the broader community needs and instead focusing on what the district or network needs, we may achieve some short-term gains for the school system but often at the cost of the long-term goals for the community鈥檚 system of schools. Continually reminding ourselves of this important distinction can go a long way toward preserving our focus.

Second, embrace a better, more honest definition of community. It is critical that the bounds of the community feel authentic to the members of that community鈥攇eographically, culturally, and politically. It is often convenient for politicians and others in positions of power to leave out members of the community to allow special interest groups to frame the conversation. In the planning and execution of systemic work, we have to put at the core of the work the very members who have been consistently failed by the system itself. When we are honest about who the real stakeholders are in our community and have clear priorities, the opportunity for real systemic change becomes possible.

Third, reject the idea that we have to start from scratch. In this chapter, I have identified many policies and practices that worked, some of which have been tossed out because of politics. The past five years have been a time of extreme polarization in all areas of public discourse, with education as no exception. An emerging playbook was beginning, but it has been all but obliterated. We need innovation for sure, and we also need a clear-eyed assessment of what didn鈥檛 work, but we aren鈥檛 starting from scratch. Kids don鈥檛 have time for us to reinvent the wheel.

Fourth, accept that this is messy and that revolutions are never quiet or fast. As much as I鈥檝e tried to codify my lessons and experiences into an actionable, coherent framework, nothing gets around the fact that transformative and disruptive systemic change will never be quick or tidy. This is not outpatient laser surgery that leaves no scar; this is chest-opening, quadruple bypass surgery with a lot of risks and long-term effects. But like a good doctor鈥檚 goals, our charge is to help the patient lead a long, healthy life. We also cannot expect immediate results. Real change takes time. The ideas and epiphanies in this chapter I share humbly and with tremendous gratitude to the countless friends, colleagues, and mentors in this sector who helped shape my beliefs about this work. It鈥檚 been more than a decade since I arrived in Newark and forty years since A Nation at Risk. My hope is that we鈥檝e all gained a bit of useful perspective and are ready to roll up our sleeves and put the lessons we鈥檝e learned into action.

See the full Hoover Institution initiative: . 

School gardens, culturally diverse foods, and options that reflect not only dietary restrictions but also students鈥� preferences: These are just a few of the things the Coalition for Healthy Food in Newark Schools hopes to see in the near future.

Now, thanks to a $3.8 million grant from Novo Nordisk, a health care and pharmaceutical company, these changes might be possible.

According to a press release announcing the coalition鈥檚 launch, the program鈥檚 first year will likely include the planting of more school gardens, further funding for partnerships with local farmers, and in-school nutrition education, among many other initiatives.

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The coalition will use the funding across three years with the first year serving as a baseline assessment to test the greatest needs.

Newark families have long complained about school meals, citing processed and unhealthy lunches. This is a step towards changing that.

The coalition, which officially launched on Oct. 26, is headed by the Greater Newark Conservancy, alongside partners Common Market, FoodCorps N,J., Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, R.W.J. Barnabas Health, United Way of Greater Newark, and the Urban Agriculture Cooperative.

The conservancy has worked to promote environmental, social, and racial justice in the Newark community since 1987, putting on family events centered around nutrition education, leading community garden initiatives, and between July and October, welcoming the Newark community to their expansive farm stand.

Over the course of its community work, the conservancy found that families were generally unhappy with the meals being served to children in Newark鈥檚 public schools.

In recent years, Newark鈥檚 school breakfast and lunch programs have been met with mixed reactions. While families have complained of processed, unhealthy meals, the N.J. Department of Agriculture has praised Newark鈥檚 meal services on several occasions.

In a , the N.J. Department of Agriculture food and nutrition division director Rose Chamberlain said, 鈥淭he Newark Public School District sets an excellent example of how a high-quality school lunch program can work.鈥�

But in October 2021, just days before the N.J. Department of Agriculture gave similar praise to Newark鈥檚 food programs, for their children, most notably through an .

The coalition is hopeful that some of the parents鈥� demands can now be met.

Between August and October of this year, the coalition surveyed a 100-person sample of community members, students, school staff, and food providers in order to assess the issues most pressing in Newark鈥檚 school cafeterias.

The survey showed that access to 鈥渇rom-scratch鈥� food in students鈥� lunches was the most requested change. Survey respondents took issue with the frequency at which students are served heavily processed meals.

Other common complaints included a lack of meals reflecting students鈥� cultures, insufficient nutritional education, and inaccessibility of green space or gardens.

Natasha Dyer, executive director of the Greater Newark Conservancy, said that over the next three years, the coalition will spend about half of the Novo Nordisk funding fortifying existing programs and the other half on piloting new initiatives.

For now, Dyer said, the coalition鈥檚 work will take place in a select number of schools: Hawthorne Avenue, Avon Avenue, Mt. Vernon, Lincoln, McKinley Elementary, Thirteenth Avenue, Harriet Tubman, and Peshine Avenue.

鈥淟uckily, our funding partner is allowing us the flexibility to adjust our plans as we go. Our goal in the first year is to assess our programming and figure out what works with the hope of leveraging policy in the district as a whole,鈥� said Dyer.

Sarah O鈥橪eary, the Greater Newark Conservancy鈥檚 director of youth and family education, said her personal hope is that the coalition鈥檚 work will get more students excited about health and nutrition.

O鈥橪eary said that when children are given the opportunity to try healthy food they do not normally eat, they often discover they like it. She said that cafeteria 鈥渢aste tests鈥� of seasonal vegetables are particularly fun for students who may not have access to certain foods at home.

鈥淔or example, kids love spaghetti squash! Then they go home and tell their parents about it and that can lead to healthier meals even outside of school,鈥� O鈥橪eary said.

Community gardens have a similar effect, said O鈥橪eary. Being surrounded by plants and green space, along with understanding the value of nutritious local produce, can be important for a student鈥檚 development.

鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting for kids to eat something they grew,鈥� O鈥橪eary said. 鈥淕etting to use tools and get their hands dirty to actually grow their own food is the best marketing for nutritious eating.鈥�

This was originally published in Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

The reported late last month there was a 78% increase in multilingual students for the 2023-24 academic year compared to the last two years.

鈥淔rom 2020 to 2023, the District has witnessed a staggering 78% surge in the Multilingual Learner population,鈥� according to a press release.

District spokeswoman Nancy Deering told 麻豆精品 the majority of new multilingual students come from Spanish speaking countries.

District officials would not say if the influx of multilingual students come from migrant families, but immigration cases have increased in the . 

And reported in the last year it has doubled the number of families they have helped, with about half migrating from Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico and Chile.  

In the 2022-23 academic year, there were more than , with 9,000 multilingual students and 6,000 鈥� about 24% and 15% respectively.

With a 78% surge, the previous 9,000 multilingual students comes to more than 16,000 for the 2023-24 academic year, with Latino students comprising the majority of the district’s enrollment. 

In the 2022-23 academic year, there were nearly 23,000 Latino students, about 55% of the student population 鈥� compared to 36% of Black students and 7% of white students, according to the .

Newark superintendent Roger Le贸n told 麻豆精品 the district hired close to 1,000 teachers in the past two academic years but currently has 80 vacancies mostly for multilingual and special needs teachers. 

English Language Learners

Le贸n said educators must be certified to teach multilingual students, slowing down the hiring process.

To ease these staffing shortages, Le贸n said the district has created incentives for current teachers to get the certification.

鈥淲e have a pool of staff members that are in route to get the endorsement and once they’re done that’ll be how we solve our problem,鈥� said Le贸n.

Neither Le贸n nor Deering would elaborate on what the incentives were. 

The district also held its in August for more than 250 teachers to help English language learners pass an English proficiency test and transition out of needing multilingual services.

Special Education

One parent said staffing issues in the district has prevented her two high school children with special needs from fully thriving, oftentimes needing occupational therapy among other services that aren鈥檛 always available.

鈥淚 just see the district harboring kids on the spectrum from high functioning to low functioning all in the same classroom which is not a good idea,鈥� she told 麻豆精品 anonymously to protect the identity of her children. 鈥淢y kids have a different level of learning and they need to be with that particular group.鈥�

Another parent added how staffing problems prevented her 6th grade son from attending a specialized district school. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 been issue after issue after issue,鈥� she told 麻豆精品 anonymously to protect the identity of her son. 鈥淓very single thing, all the support I鈥檝e been advocating for, has been a fight.鈥�

Le贸n believes the district wouldn鈥檛 have to worry about finding special education teachers if Newark鈥檚 charter schools didn鈥檛 contribute to the problem.

鈥淪tudents that have an IEP are not afforded an opportunity to have an education in Newark charter schools because they get kicked out,鈥� said Le贸n. 鈥淪o if we want to help solve this problem, the charter schools need to get it together.鈥�

Much rides on that potential detente.

A little history: In 1995, the state took over Newark鈥檚 school system after an investigation detailed 鈥渓ow student test scores, high dropout rates, questionable expenditures of public funds, and crumbling buildings with health and safety hazards.鈥� Over the next 15 years, a series of state-appointed superintendents shuffled through while student academic growth . Then, in 2011, then-Gov. Chris Christie appointed Cami Anderson, who saw parents as the ultimate arbiter of what is best for their children, recognized the draw of the city鈥檚 charter sector and inaugurated the district鈥檚 universal enrollment system, called .

Sure, that first year was glitchy. But Anderson鈥檚 successor, Christopher Cerf 鈥� the last state-appointed superintendent before the district began the transition back to local control in 2018 鈥� the improvement in student outcomes in both district and charter schools is 鈥渄irectly attributable to the district鈥檚 decision to empower parents with public school choice and to focus relentlessly on the twin values of school performance and equitable access to quality options.鈥�

When Roger Leon, the first locally appointed superintendent in a quarter-century, took over the following year, he declared himself a fan of the charter partnership, , 鈥渋t鈥檚 our responsibility to make sure that whatever [school] parents choose, they get.鈥� Yet, in an early sign of Leon鈥檚 disaffection for the charter school sector, as superintendent was to fire the head of Newark Enrolls and her assistants. 

In 2019, despite a with the city’s charter schools, the district unilaterally the enrollment portal for three months to install a new system. It also shuttered a that many parents relied on. All parents, whether new to the district or unhappy with their child鈥檚 school, could enroll their children only by going to the Central Office during specified hours. The next year, the rules changed again: the district said it would grant transfers only in 鈥渃ertain cases, such as when a child requires a school with a special education program.鈥� 

Then came COVID-19. In early 2021, with schools and government offices closed, the district decreed that parents choosing charters for their children must in order to even start an application. Attendance officers were sent to their homes, a measure Rosenkrans 鈥渟trong-armed, invasive tactics toward parents.鈥� Families were . 

An enrollment system that a lauded for adhering to principles of 鈥渃hoice, access, community, equity, reliability, ease and transparency,鈥� had devolved into one that was separate and unequal. Newark鈥檚 charter school leaders pulled out, ready to go back to the each-school-on-its-own model that required parents to fill out multiple applications.

Then the foundation stepped up.

Having recently launched , a platform that gives parents detailed information about the city’s 184 district, charter, private and parochial schools, the foundation contracted with a company called to create a , based on . Though Leon and the Newark School Board declined Rosenkrans’s to join this new third-party-run system, the app launched seamlessly this past year. Over 3,500 Newark families participated, taking advantage of a centralized application, lottery and waitlist with an emphasis on equity and access. The algorithm weights the lottery to increase enrollment for homeless and displaced students, special education kids, English learners and those who qualify for free school lunch. This year, the largest number of families applied for kindergarten slots, and, of those, 98% were matched to the first school of their choice. Across all grades, 83% of families received one of their top three choices.

The foundation hasn鈥檛 given up on its ultimate goal of renewing the alliance among all public schools in the city, and Rosenkrans says he would happily hand over Avela鈥檚 platform to another third party if that would make the district more comfortable. 

Even Mayor Ras Baraka 鈥� who made his initial campaign in 2014 a on Anderson and is rumored to be contemplating a gubernatorial run 鈥� favors restoring the partnership. 

Leslie Comesanas, the foundation’s director of family and community support and the head of Newark Common App, told me, 鈥淚f Superintendent Leon would pick up the phone and say, 鈥楲et鈥檚 jump in with you,鈥� we would be thrilled. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 best for families.鈥�

During my freshman year, I attended three different schools, all of which had one thing in common 鈥� none were a welcoming environment, from the students, teachers and administrators alike. 

Eventually, I found a school that had what the others were missing: LEAD Charter School in Newark, New Jersey. My time there helped prepare me for my budding career in the health care field, but it shouldn鈥檛 have taken as long as it did to find a school like that. I鈥檓 not the first person who didn鈥檛 feel supported by a traditional high school approach and I won鈥檛 be the last. The rigid environment and policies that schools too often adhere to affect students like me 鈥� students that felt unheard and, as a result, had a hard time succeeding.

The persistence of this issue pushes some students to drop out. Although I didn鈥檛 drop out, many students like me have experienced pushout, when within the learning environment lead to youth disconnection from school. This can include situations in which teachers and staff don鈥檛 reflect the student body and an over-reliance on zero-tolerance discipline policies that push students out of school. 

I have experienced the weight of pushout. At one of my former high schools, I got into a fight that I did not incite, which resulted in a one-month suspension. During that time, I didn鈥檛 receive any learning materials. No homework. No classwork. Not even a study guide. I was failing nearly all of my classes. What made matters worse was the other two girls that fought me only received a two-week suspension. 

I felt unwelcomed and misunderstood from all sides, including the administrators. I remember clearly having to fight to keep my water with me when I was sick while the administrators pestered me to get rid of it. The no-food or drink rule only worked in theory since they played favorites and allowed certain students to keep their food and drinks. The administrators made school much harder for me than it should have been through encounters like this. 

My experiences at my previous schools are perfect examples of what doesn鈥檛 work and what makes school difficult for students. One of the several other ways my former high schools made things difficult for me was by withholding the knowledge of my academic progress. Up until I enrolled at LEAD, I didn鈥檛 know my GPA or how many credits I had. I was just going to school and going home, unaware of where I stood academically. 

Meanwhile, in the classroom, I felt as though the curriculum wasn鈥檛 relevant or applicable to the real world. Instead of pushing me to excel, they were pushing me farther and farther away from the finish line 鈥� graduation.

My experience at LEAD, however, was a complete 180 from my experience at my other high schools. The staff, students and teachers supported me both academically and non-academically. The curriculum is built for students that are looking to enter the workforce and start a career. It was at LEAD where I explored my interest in health care and earned my Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certification. 

When other schools pushed me aside, LEAD was the school that lent me a helping hand and guided me onto my current path, a path toward earning my home health aide (HHA) certification and working in the health care industry. 

More schools should incorporate these principles and create educational environments that respond to all students 鈥� their futures depend on it. A good place to start is by hiring diverse staff that represent the student body and altering school discipline policies. Diversifying staff in schools would help break down barriers between staff and students and help them better understand students鈥� backgrounds and experiences. This would help combat the unwelcoming environment within schools and lessen the negative interactions students have with staff. 

The same can be said for school discipline policies. Reframing schools鈥� perspective on student behavior through investment in alternatives, such as mental health counseling and more student-centered practices, will help eliminate the issues that would require suspension or expulsion.

School discipline policies, staff diversity and social alienation could be addressed through the passage of pending state legislation that would create an Office of Dropout Prevention and Reengagement. The office would dedicate its efforts to understanding young people like me who are pushed to the edge of disconnection as well as my peers who have fully disconnected from school. It would be responsible for developing and helping school districts use strategies to combat these triggers for disconnection. This would give students like me all over the state the conditions for learning that are needed in order to succeed in the classroom and in life.

No one should be suspended for a month or feel targeted at their school. Although that is a part of my story, it shouldn鈥檛 and doesn鈥檛 have to be that way for others. You can act now to encourage your legislator to support the bill and make them aware of how important the issue of dropout prevention is to the state. If we are successful, there will be a place in our schools for every New Jersey student 鈥� no matter who they are.

On Dec. 1, four young people from Newark, Trenton and Camden who are part of the NJ Opportunity Youth Coalition testified before the state Senate Education Committee in support of , which passed and was referred to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. A companion is making its way through the state Assembly.

It鈥檚 making an informed choice where some say things can get tricky 鈥� and overwhelming.

Dane Tomlin is one such parent in the city. The father of two school-aged boys, he still remembers his search a couple years ago, to find the right school to serve his sons鈥� needs. Not sure where to start, and wary of the uphill battle of going school by school with questions about educational approaches and services, he recalls relying almost entirely on the recommendations of prior teachers and what those educators had happened to hear through their networks about schools in the district. 

But this year, Tomlin was able to use a new tool available to Newark residents that aims to break down the barriers to school research and empower parents by putting more information at their fingertips.

The tool is dubbed 鈥�,鈥� and it鈥檚 the brainchild of the local non-profit New Jersey Children’s Foundation, which set out to build a website that would solve some of the enrollment challenges and problems that parents were surfacing during extensive focus groups and parent engagement sessions throughout the city. 

The free site, which is also optimized for mobile devices which many parents say they prefer, offers visitors a one-stop shop of school information across all neighborhoods and school models. This includes a searchable database that gives families direct access to information on every traditional district school in the city, as well as charters, private schools, preschools and vocational campuses. Site users can apply filters by distance, grade, special education, English learner programs and type of application required.

鈥淚t gets you started in the right direction,鈥� Tomlin says, noting that the information he found during My Schools Network鈥檚 beta-test helped guide his additional research and subsequent conversations with other parents. 

Polling from local focus groups showed that while Newark has many assets when it comes to education, the school selection process could be cumbersome and often difficult for parents to navigate, said Kyle Rosenkrans, NJCF鈥檚 executive director. 鈥淧icking a school that works best for your child and meets your child’s learning needs is a tremendous high-stakes decision that parents have to make 鈥� What [parents] were asking for, when we listened, was better information. So what we set out to do is to create a kind of Zillow for finding schools.鈥�

There are more than 185 schools in Newark, he notes, and there has previously been no tool that allows parents to search and filter across every available school type. In the same way someone might search for properties in a specific area, so, too, can parents now customize their school search. 

My Schools Newark began beta-testing in December of last year, reaching out to Newark families through social and digital campaigns and gaining feedback from Newark schools and community groups. The platform received more than 45,000 unique visits during the initial public beta phase. 

鈥淲e really wanted this to be a community-driven initiative in which we were building this alongside parents,鈥� said Sarah Yan, an executive director-in-residence at NJCF. 鈥淚t’s not a resource just for parents, but it’s a resource that’s built alongside and with parents.鈥�

The organization recently announced that Octavia Thompson would lead and oversee the platform. She said community engagement was baked into the DNA of the effort and that the many meetings with parents and community-based organizations that were held during development served as an invaluable two-way dialogue with families. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to me, just in that service-oriented mindset, of wanting to make sure we’re giving families what they need. We’re listening to your concerns, we鈥檙e listening to what you need,鈥� Thompson said.

鈥嬧�婤eyond a plethora of choices, Thompson noted that campus closures during the pandemic may have caused additional strain for families seeking out school and enrollment information. She hopes the new database will help families navigate their way out of the crisis. 

The community outreach continued in February, as My Schools Newark hosted a virtual school fair to assist families during the pivotal Newark Enrolls application period. The fair included representatives from over 20 district and charter schools, as well as pre-k locations. Officials say more than 100 parents and family members registered to attend the event.

Enrollment in Newark has shifted because the district is growing, Rosenkrans said. Over the last decade, the size of the school system has increased by 13,000 students; in the last four years alone, 12 new charter schools have opened and 12 district schools have either opened or expanded. Meanwhile, he added, many private schools have closed during the pandemic, leading parents to look for new public options. 

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to the New Jersey Children’s Foundation and 麻豆精品.

The program, dubbed , will be available to first- and second-year students on the school鈥檚 New Brunswick campus beginning in the 2022-2023 school year. Rutgers officials expect 7,600 students 鈥� nearly 20% of enrolled undergraduates 鈥� to qualify for the program. 

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The initiative is launching the same semester as Garden State Guarantee, a college affordability program signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy aimed at helping third- and fourth-year students from low- and middle-income households.

If students from families with an adjusted gross income of $65,000 or less take advantage of both programs, full tuition and mandatory fees would be covered for four years.

For families with incomes between $65,001 and $80,000, the cost would be a maximum of $3,000 annually. The maximum cost would rise to $5,000 annually for families making between $80,001 and $100,000.

Students would still be responsible for meal plans, housing, textbooks, transportation, and other costs.

Scarlet Guarantee is expected to cost $24 million for the first year, with the state paying $10 million. It will be what鈥檚 known as a 鈥渓ast dollar鈥� program, meaning it will kick in on top of other scholarships and grants.

鈥淭he Scarlet Guarantee program will help qualified students from across New Jersey realize their hopes, dreams, and ambitions and will help Rutgers become an even richer and more diverse university,鈥� Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said in a statement. 

The program is part of a nationwide movement to lower the skyrocketing cost of higher education. , which tracks trends in college pricing and student aid, reports the national average tuition at a public college stood at $10,740 for the 2021-2022 academic year.

According to the , the cost of college jumped 169% from 1980 to 2019.

For the  in-state tuition at Rutgers costs $12,536, while non-New Jersey residents pay more than $29,000. Room and board cost students another $13,400, and fees tack on an average of $3,268.

Tuition for 2022-2023 has not been set. 

A 2022 study by  found New Jersey is the fifth most expensive state for in-state college tuition, behind New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.

Students don鈥檛 have to fill out any extra paperwork to be considered for Scarlet Guarantee. Anyone who completes the FAFSA or New Jersey Alternative Financial Aid Application for Dreamers 鈥� undocumented students protected under DACA 鈥� are automatically considered.

Students must be full-time, enrolled in at least 12 credits per semester working toward their first bachelor鈥檚 degree, and meet academic progress standards. Students in their fifth year and graduate students are not eligible.

Rutgers  and Rutgers  already have similar programs providing free tuition to some families who earn less than $65,000, and reduced tuition fees for students from households that earn less than $100,000. Other schools across the Garden State, including  and , have expanded their financial aid to help cut costs for low- and middle-income students. 

New Jersey is also home to the , which offers free tuition to 18 community colleges for undergraduates from homes with incomes of $65,000 or less.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

When Newark students took a series of diagnostic tests last fall, some seven months into the pandemic, the results were alarming:

Nearly 80% of third graders and almost 90% of fourth graders would 鈥渘ot meet the passing score鈥� on the state math exams, according to a district analysis that was not made public. The projections suggested that far fewer students were on track to master grade-level math than in previous years.

After a spring of school closures and limited learning, students were seriously struggling in math.

鈥淒ue to the COVID-19 pandemic, learning loss among our students in mathematics is one of the most significant challenges faced by schools in Newark,鈥� district officials wrote in an application this January seeking academic recovery funds. 鈥淢any of our students have fallen even further behind than they were prior to COVID-19.鈥�

Many of those students likely continued to slip behind last school year as remote learning stretched into April, keeping students out of classrooms for 13 months. Yet, in more than two dozen public school board meetings since the global crisis began, district leaders have never given a detailed accounting of the pandemic鈥檚 toll on student learning.

Even after the fall test scores, which the district never publicly released, clearly showed that academic damage had already been done, Superintendent Roger Le贸n suggested publicly that learning loss could still be curbed.

鈥淧art of the strategy here is not to assume that there will be loss,鈥� he said at a board meeting in December, 鈥渂ut to assume that we actually can do something about it right now.鈥�

It isn鈥檛 just test scores. The district has taken other steps that, intentionally or not, have obscured the pandemic鈥檚 full impact on students.

After school buildings shut down last spring and , the district  during remote learning. And this past school year, several educators told Chalkbeat  even to students who never attended online class or completed any work 鈥� all while the district insisted its normal grading policies remained in effect.

鈥淭heir grades aren鈥檛 their correct grades,鈥� a district elementary school teacher told Chalkbeat this week, asking to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation. 鈥淵ou couldn鈥檛 fail any kids.鈥�

There is no doubt that district officials have closely monitored students鈥� academic progress over the past year and worked diligently on plans to address their needs. But they have not publicly shared data on student learning or gone into detail about the district鈥檚 plans for academic recovery. Le贸n has referenced plans for tutoring and Saturday school, but has not disclosed specifics 鈥� leaving it unclear how the district will spend more than $40 million in   specifically intended to address learning loss.

Newark is not the only school district that hasn鈥檛 voluntarily released academic data from the past year. Still, the lack of transparency means Newark families and the public have no way of knowing how far students fell behind during the pandemic, and no way of holding the district accountable for catching them up.

鈥淯ntil we have the numbers and we own what has happened to our children, we can鈥檛 fix it,鈥� said Deborah Smith-Gregory, a former district teacher and president of the Newark NAACP.

Newark community members have repeatedly asked the district for details about the pandemic鈥檚 impact on student learning.

At a closed-door meeting in December, school board member A鈥橠orian Murray-Thomas told district officials that 鈥渢he board and community want to know more information on how students are performing academically,鈥� according to meeting minutes. An official then gave the committee a presentation on the results of the diagnostic tests students took this fall, called the NWEA MAP Growth tests.

But at a public board meeting the next week, officials said nothing about the tests. When a board member asked Le贸n about his plans to address learning loss, he gave only a vague answer. He mentioned 鈥渙nline programs,鈥� 鈥渟ome changes to the curriculum,鈥� and 鈥渙pportunities before and after school, even on Saturdays.鈥� He did not specify what the programs, curriculum changes, or opportunities were, nor how many students were getting support.

Yet just a month later, in a grant application not available to the public, the district went into detail about students鈥� academic needs and a proposed program to catch them up.

In the application for a state grant to address learning loss, the district revealed that the fall MAP tests showed 鈥渟tudents in grades 3 and 4 are struggling in mathematics.鈥� The district estimated that only 22% of third graders would be able to meet grade-level expectations on the state math test, compared with 35% who met expectations in 2019. Among fourth graders, just 11% were projected to meet math expectations, compared with 32% who did so in 2019.

In response, the district proposed a four-week math program this summer targeting 600 rising fourth and fifth graders with the lowest MAP scores. The program would 鈥渃ompensate for the learning loss of the most vulnerable students during the COVID-19 pandemic,鈥� the district wrote in the application submitted this January, which the state would not release to Chalkbeat until June.

The state did not award Newark one of the roughly $156,000 learning loss grants. However, the district is getting more than $282 million in federal pandemic-relief funds, with about $40 million reserved for academic recovery efforts.

Whether Newark is putting any of that money towards an intensive math program this summer is unclear. A district spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the program, learning loss data, or recovery plans.

So what is Newark doing to address the unprecedented disruption in student learning, when most students were shut out of classrooms for over a year and many spent part of that time struggling to access online classes?

The district told the state last school year simply that it was offering 鈥淪aturday Academies; Extended School Day; Tutoring鈥� to address learning gaps, as well as lessons and counseling to meet students鈥� social-emotional needs 鈥� all services that many schools provided well before the pandemic. The district is also operating a summer learning program, as it does every year. Officials have not described publicly how they modified summer school this year to respond to students鈥� heightened needs.

Newark is certainly not the only school district in New Jersey, or , where student learning has suffered over the past year.

An  of mid-year test data found that about 37% of students statewide were below grade level in math and English. The analysis also found wide racial gaps, with more than half of Black and Hispanic students below grade level in math, compared with less than 30% of White students.

An  of test scores from 15 New Jersey districts and charter schools also found evidence of pandemic learning loss. During the first half of last school year, students in grades 3-8 made about 30% less progress in English and 36% less progress in math than they would be expected to make during that period in a typical year, according to the analysis, which was commissioned by the advocacy group JerseyCAN.

Patricia Morgan, the group鈥檚 executive director, said officials from the state down to individual districts must be forthright about learning loss before they can properly address it: 鈥淲e need to know where our students are to get them the resources they need.鈥�

Students who attend charter schools in Newark, including English learners and those with learning disabilities, are less likely to transfer out within two years than their peers at the district鈥檚 public schools, according to a new study. Children were also significantly more likely to shed their special-needs classification while enrolled at a Newark charter, the authors note.

The study, released as this week and Education Next, offers more perspective on the long-running debate over admissions and retention in the charter sector. Critics of the publicly funded but privately operated schools that they push out kids with learning, language or behavioral challenges like suspension or expulsion.

Co-author Marcus Winters, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Boston University, said in an interview that he believed individual schools of all kinds 鈥渋nappropriately鈥� encouraged some students to leave. But the Newark study, along with looking at schools in Tennessee and North Carolina, has disproven the notion that charters routinely engage in the practice, he argued.

鈥淚 do think it’s fair to say that our paper 鈥� has now sufficiently debunked the myth that charter schools 鈥� at least in these areas that have been studied 鈥� are systematically pushing these students out,鈥� Winters said.

Winters and co-author Allison Gilmour, a professor at Temple University, set out to compare enrollment trends in Newark, a city with one of the largest charter school sectors in the country. To do so, they used data from the Newark Enrolls assignment system, which allows families to select among their choice of traditional schools and approximately 70 percent of the city鈥檚 charters. (Not all local charters participate in Newark Enrolls, but those that do account for about five-sixths of charter students.)

Several variables in the Newark Enrolls formula determine which students are assigned to certain schools, including each child鈥檚 rank-ordered school preferences; individual factors prioritized by various schools (such as sibling preference); and randomized lottery numbers that are used in case a given school is overenrolled. By gathering administrative data between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years, Winters and Gilmour were able to compare patterns of school entrance and exit for nearly 14,000 students.

In all, children attending Newark charter schools were 22 percentage points less likely to leave that school within two years than substantially similar students who were instead assigned to traditional public schools. English learners were 16 percentage points less likely to transfer out of a charter, and students with a disability nearly 11 percentage points less likely. The difference for Hispanic students was not statistically significant.

The smaller chances of transfers may be attributable to the system鈥檚 format of ranked school preferences. In a model that controlled for families鈥� ranking of schools, charter students were still less likely to leave within two years, but only by about 10 percentage points; that suggests that a sizable portion of the charter school effect is simply a reflection of students attending the school they wanted to go to in the first place, Winters said.

鈥淵ou might just be more willing to stick it out with a school that you originally had as a higher preference,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you’re attending a school that you went to on purpose, you’re just less likely to leave it. And if you’re going to a charter school in a place like Newark, where several of the charter schools are among the most popular choices 鈥� you’re probably going to one of your most highly preferred schools.鈥�

By tracking the same students over time, the study also observes gradual movement within individual subgroups. Specifically, children with a special-needs classification at charter schools are much less likely to still have an Individualized Education Program a few years later 鈥� a phenomenon that may help explain why the percentage of students receiving services is lower in charters. The effect is particularly notable for children entering charter schools between kindergarten and third grade (31 percentage points more likely to lose a special-needs classification within three years) and between grades four and six (20 points). Those findings dovetail with research pointing to similar trends in special-needs assignment at Boston charter schools.

Comprehensive examinations, including from the federal Government Accountability Office, have shown that charters generally teach smaller numbers of kids with disabilities than district schools. More recent evidence indicates that those gaps may be shrinking, though it鈥檚 unknown how the huge upheaval triggered by COVID-19 may have shuffled enrollment trends.

If the study raises doubts about the claim that charter schools consistently work to remove struggling or hard-to-teach students from their classrooms, it offers little clarity about how they approach recruitment. At least that charters in multiple states were less likely than district schools to respond to application inquiries from parents of children with severe disabilities.

Winters concluded that the population differences between sectors could arise from only one of three sources: recruitment of students, mobility of students once enrolled and (in the case of English learners and disabled students) changes in status classification such as those detected in the Newark study. More investigation was needed into how different schools attract families, he said.

“It’s clear to me, at least, that the major driver in these enrollment gaps is who’s enrolling in the first place. We need more information about the enrollment side.鈥�

No one ever cared when I didn鈥檛 get into fights. How I bit my tongue when girls were talking behind my back or when I walked away from confrontations.

At my old school, if you had a problem with somebody, you had to handle it yourself. The school never cared about me; they only cared that I was obedient. But eventually, everybody has their breaking point. For me, it was after months of these upper class girls pushing my buttons and pushing me to my limits until I fought them.

When I was being harassed by bullies, I couldn鈥檛 turn to anyone for help. At that time, I handled my problems by using my hands and running my mouth, which usually landed me in the principal鈥檚 office or expelled from my school. There鈥檚 thousands of kids across New Jersey just like me getting pushed out of schools with no safety net. Just last year,

And once you鈥檙e out, if you鈥檙e not in school or working a job, you usually end up at a state youth prison like Jamesburg or Hayes, . It鈥檚 time to make sure youth like me have the support they need, so they don鈥檛 end up in jail and wasting their potential.

I found the support I needed at LEAD Charter School in Newark, New Jersey鈥檚 first 鈥� and only 鈥� alternative charter high school designed for young people, ages 16 to 24, looking to get back on track, get their diploma and get a job. At LEAD, we use the model of community building, leadership development and self-improvement to become better learners, workers and leaders in our community.

When I first joined LEAD, I went through a two-week process called Mental Toughness that pulled me completely out of my comfort zone. I spoke with different people from different backgrounds, explored my feelings, and had a community of people holding me accountable. If I was late, I had to own it. I couldn鈥檛 make excuses. And I had to start applying myself. I had to face some hard truths and decide what type of So鈥橬ya did I want to be?

Everybody that you connect with at LEAD is here for the same thing; they鈥檙e here to push you ahead, and when you鈥檙e surrounded by that kind of energy, it makes you want to change.

And it wasn鈥檛 just the students. The staff care about us and want us to succeed. They push us to do our best and they understand acceptance isn鈥檛 always at home, so they make LEAD feel like home. The community helped me decide that I want to be the So鈥橬ya that fights for my future.

Every student deserves a school community that wants to see them succeed. A place that supports your mental health, your social-emotional health and gives you the tools you need to be the best version of yourself.

LEAD changed me for the better, and I know students across Newark would also thrive, if they had a community like LEAD to turn to. If the goal is to help young people be their best, LEAD is doing that work 鈥� and with a fraction of the budget. In the 2019-20 school year, 12.2 percent of young people with priors reoffended while 52.4 percent of youth released in 2016 reoffended within three years of their release. while LEAD spends $16,000 a year per student with better results.

Programs like LEAD and YouthBuild Newark are making a difference in the lives of young people throughout New Jersey. State leaders must act now and pass bills like the , to support and grow these programs, so they can keep changing lives.

My past is always going to be my past, but I am more than my mistakes. Every student deserves someone in their corner, so they can know that success is possible for them too.

So鈥橬ya Jordan is a 2020 graduate of LEAD Charter School in Newark, New Jersey. She is currently applying for nursing school.

Just several weeks after New Jersey earned a spot at the top of聽, a聽聽shows that Newark students are posting learning gains that outpace the state鈥檚 best-in-the-nation public school system, and almost any other city they鈥檝e studied to-date.

, by a team of independent researchers at Stanford鈥檚 Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), compared student learning growth at Newark鈥檚 district, charter and magnet schools to the New Jersey statewide average, and found that Newark鈥檚 mix of public schools collectively boosted student learning at a pace that was 鈥渟ignificantly鈥� faster than the New Jersey average in reading in all three years studied, and one year in math (all years showed positive student learning gains).

鈥淭his study is proof positive that Newark has been on the right track for improving educational opportunity for children over the last decade,鈥� said聽Kyle Rosenkrans, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Children鈥檚 Foundation, a Newark-based non-profit dedicated to promoting a fact-based discussion about public education in the city.

鈥淭he city has a winning mix of improving district schools, growing charter schools, and selective-admission magnet high schools that, together, are helping students reach their greatest potential,鈥� Rosenkrans added.

Newark鈥檚 citywide results are also significant in that they were higher than nearly all of the 10 other cities studied by CREDO鈥檚 team in a recent round of reports (compiled by NJCF):

The city鈥檚 public charter school sector鈥揺xpected to reach near 40% of the student population next school year鈥揳lso performed exceptionally well, better than nearly any other sector in any city studied. Newark鈥檚 magnet and district schools also posted strong comparative results. Also notable is the performance of Camden, NJ鈥檚 Renaissance Schools, which are affiliated with many of the same non-profit organizations that support charters in Newark (KIPP NJ and Uncommon Schools).

Measures of student growth such as those in the CREDO study are seen by many as a fairer method of comparison for school performance because it measures the amount of learning that children experience in a given school year, regardless of their starting point, and even if they don鈥檛 score high enough to be deemed proficient on state tests. The study then compares that growth to the growth demonstrated by all New Jersey students鈥揳 high benchmark in a state deemed #1 in public education.

CREDO鈥檚 latest Newark study comes at a time when the state has returned control of the district school system to Newark鈥檚 elected Board of Education, a new Superintendent is pursuing a district improvement strategy, and the city鈥檚 charter school sector continues its growth to meet increasing demand鈥揳ll amidst a growing student population in Newark. It is the fourth study published in the last two years documenting the city鈥檚 historic improvements in student learning. Past studies include:

• , Marcus Winters Ph.D, Boston University, Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.
• , Jesse Margrady Ph.D, Margrady Research.
• , Jesse Margrady Ph.D, Margrady Research.

So if we can鈥檛 rely on a president to do this, where should we look?

Rebuilding the coalition must start by working from the ground up in local communities by focusing a new generation of leaders who want what is best for kids. We must continue investing in the expansion of high-performing charter schools while doing more to empower the voices of their parents, teachers, alumni and allies, and then, help them win elected office. This new generation of leaders will understand that the role of charters is not to compete with or overtake district schools, but rather to work side by side with them to improve educational opportunity for all.

We have barely begun to empower this group to shift the focus away from extreme voices in both parties that attempt to marginalize communities that want charter schools. But Newark provides some hopeful notes for this approach.

Despite the toxicity of national policy discussions about charter schools, voters in this overwhelmingly Democratic city told us in a late September that they support candidates who would expand charters 鈥� by a 2-to-1 ratio. And for the first time, a full two-thirds of Newark voters indicated their support for charters. Four of the nine members of our local school board are charter school parents, another is a parent and a former teacher, and yet another is a charter school alumna and the youngest woman ever to hold that office. These folks are reasonable, open-minded people who see the value of the district and the charters working together to improve education for children.

The lesson from Newark is clear: Despite national rhetoric to the contrary, there is deep, continuing support for charter schools when they’re not placed at odds with district schools. And that growing base of parents, alumni and teachers should be the cornerstone of a new, bipartisan coalition that reflects the communities they serve 鈥� and brings that commitment to Washington from states and cities across the country.

Getting there will take time and lots of hard work by this new generation of leaders in local communities. There need to be major new investments in programs to help charter school parents and their allies to vote more often, as well as training and support to help them win elections at every level of government and to support them once they get there.

National groups like Education Reform Now and its initiative have driven this work for years, as have local organizations in Newark and a handful of other cities. But we need to expand programs like these to have a broader, national impact and also create new ones to flesh out the infrastructure driving local change.

This kind of work is difficult because it doesn鈥檛 fit neatly into short election cycles, it forces organizations to confront the overall messiness of democracy and politics, and it will require a new, more diverse group of leaders to spearhead it. More importantly, the groups that do this are too often underresourced. It is up to all of us who care deeply about educational equity to collectively solve that problem if we are to tap the potential of this moment and rebuild a stronger, more inclusive, pro-charter coalition.

Kyle Rosenkrans is executive director of the New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to the New Jersey Children’s Foundation and 麻豆精品.

As Black Americans, community members and leaders of nonprofits 鈥� and 鈥� who are seeking to make a change in the lives of underrepresented students and families, we鈥檝e seen solvable educational and economic inequities go unsolved for decades. Addressing these inequities will require a tectonic shift in our approach to race and a focus on equity as our guiding principle when we rebuild these broken systems.

It鈥檚 a national problem, but addressing systemic racism starts locally, within our communities. With that in mind, we offer three recommendations for how communities across our country can lead the way by implementing deliberately antiracist policies, based on what we鈥檝e seen in our home communities in New Jersey:

1 Create the most inclusive voting system possible

We cannot achieve an equitable society until all Americans are able to participate in our democracy. Even in progressive states like New Jersey, where there are generally fewer acts of state-sanctioned voter suppression, there is a lot of work to be done. Decades of neglect and failure to engage voters of color have led to low levels of electoral participation in majority Black and brown communities like Newark.

We can fix this by embracing voting systems with a proven track record of increasing democratic participation: mailing every voter a ballot for every election, making it free to return those ballots, ensuring that lots of in-person polling places remain open for those who can鈥檛 vote by mail and need to safely vote in person, and allowing same-day voter registration. The solutions are commonsense 鈥� what they require is the political will to get them done.

2 Make quality education accessible to all children

Across the country, low-income students and children of color are at particular risk of falling behind during the pandemic.

However, several cities where schools were once mired in persistent neglect have begun to stand out as examples for how communities can come together to turn around school systems. Newark, Boston and Pittsburgh led the nation in the percentage of students attending schools that beat the odds by improving test scores for low-income students and students of color. In Newark, the percentage of Black students attending quality schools has more than quadrupled over the past 12 years. These cities point the way toward a more equitable future 鈥� but fixing our schools is only the first step.

3 Close the racial wealth gap in 50 years

Before COVID-19, an African American with a B.A. was twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterpart, and a bachelor鈥檚 degree holder from a low-income background started out earning only two-thirds as much as those from higher-income backgrounds. Education has the potential to be the great equalizer, but only 25 percent of our country鈥檚 1.2 million first-generation or low-income college enrollees are predicted to land a strong job after graduation and be on a path to the American Dream.

We see this manifest in our work, because New Jersey has one of the worst racial wealth gaps in the United States. The median net worth for a white family is more than $309,000, but it is just $5,900 for a Black family.

Our country needs more graduates to obtain a strong return on investment from their college degrees to close this gap. To accomplish this, we should create state incentives for employers to establish more equitable hiring processes and create more opportunities for people of color 鈥� things like incentivizing referrals for people of color and ensuring that people of color have mentors and advocates in the workplace to help them advance. During this unprecedented time, employers should continue to offer virtual internships, so students don鈥檛 fall further behind in terms of opportunities.

Just as we鈥檙e figuring out how to develop a vaccine at warp speed, we need to apply the same level of urgency to other societal challenges. These three ideas are by no means comprehensive, but they are a starting point, a call to action for community leaders to implement antiracist policies and set an example for the rest of the country.

Shennell McCloud is executive director of Project Ready, an organization that seeks to engage more Newark families in decision-making. She is the mother of a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old and lives with her husband in Newark.

Vincent Marigna is executive director of Braven, a career and leadership development accelerator focused on supporting first-generation, low-income college students to secure a strong first job out of college. He is the father of a 3-year-old and lives with his partner in West Orange, New Jersey.