GOVERNMENT
ASK THE MAYOR
City of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka holds ‘Reading Under the Stars’ during the 2022 summer break to promote literacy skills to youth.
How does this affect the city in general? Mayor Baraka: “As an educator and former Newark school principal, I know the connection between childhood reading proficiency, high school graduation, and life success with meaningful productive employment. So these scores are incredibly alarming to me. When children learn to read well early, and enjoy it, they benefit from lifetime access to new thinking, interesting ideas, and ways of living beyond our imagination.”
What is the Mayor’s office doing about this? Mayor Baraka: “We are putting a full court press around this. We are putting a lot of effort into getting students to read on grade level by third grade. We have to address this because from Pre-K to third grade you are learning to read. From third grade and beyond, you are learning because you are reading. So, that means it’s difficult for kids to learn by grades four or five if they can’t read by third grade.”
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n July, Mayor Baraka’s Brain Trust rolled out the below 10-point Actionable Plan for this school year:
Schools will… 1. Implement one-on-one high dosage tutoring embedded in the school day and after school. 2. Select books that reflect children’s cultural and ethnic background. 3. Incorporate more writing to improve reading comprehension. Parents will… 4. Enroll children in free PreK-3 and PreK-4 programs, and ensure everyday attendance. 5. Read aloud and listen to your child read daily, and ask questions. 6. Get quality prenatal care and read books to unborn children. 7. Build vocabulary during all ages (newborn to third grade). Community Partners and Non-profits will… 8. Ensure all afterschool programs have a reading component. 9. Develop literacy initiatives throughout the city . 10. Distribute books for family access to help develop home library. dN
City of Newark’s 2023 ‘Reading Under the Stars’ program .
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| FALL 2023 5
PHOTOS COURTESY CITY OF NEWARK
It was recently reported that students have suffered a significant learning loss due to pandemic-related school conditions, resulting in Newark dropping to a 27% passing rate for all schools.
