[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're pleased to be joined by Jessie Gomez, reporter for a terrific website information platform committed to education, Chalkbeat, Newark.

Jessie, great to have you with us for the first time.

Won't be the last time.

- Thanks for having me.

- Tell everyone what Chalkbeat is.

- Yeah, so we are pretty much embedded in Newark.

We cover education inequities across the city and also education overall in the state.

So we're really a grassroots organization that focuses on, you know, the voices of students and families on the ground.

And a lot of our reporting reflects that.

- Okay, so this is, there's so many aspects to issues of education, so many educational issues, but this is the thing that we wanna talk about today.

So in 1954, the United States Supreme Court determined in the Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka case that separate but equal doesn't work, that our schools needed to be desegregated, they need to be integrated.

All these years later New Jersey has the sixth most segregated public schools in the nation.

A, how the heck did we get here?

And B, what do we do to move forward to have our schools be more integrated?

And frankly, for those who are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, give them an opportunity for the best education that the state can offer, through the Constitution, which says you're supposed to do that.

Go ahead.

- Yeah, so it is pretty surprising.

I mean, New Jersey is one of the most diverse states, yet its public school system is among the most segregated in the country.

Like you said, it's the sixth most segregated state for Black students in terms of the exposure to white students and the seventh most for Latinos.

And that's, you know, it's really concerning, 'cause at least in Newark, we know that at least more than 90% of students identify as Black or Latino.

So it is a pretty prominent issue, especially within Newark schools.

And so we know that the state has, you know, sort of has allowed for this, because according to their laws, the state is, the students are supposed to go to school where they live.

And so, you know, a student in the Newark can't go to school in, let's say, Montclair or another city.

And so the educational experience in students in cities like Newark is very different from those, perhaps, in South Jersey or more suburban areas.

So that's where we got here today.

And like you said, the state's constitution also says that, you know, school segregation is pretty much not allowed in the states.

So, you know, right now there's a lawsuit before New Jersey, where the the state is pretty much, there's plaintiffs are pretty much saying that the state might be responsible for addressing the fact that these schools are segregated.

And that's something right now that we're awaiting a decision on.

- Jessie, let's put this in perspective.

2018, a lawsuit was filed by the Latino Action Network and the NAACP.

They're the plaintiffs, arguing that the state of New Jersey has promulgated, promoted, allowed for, however you wanna describe it, the segregation of our schools.

So here's the question.

Are we waiting for a court decision to tell the state leaders to do something?

Or are there efforts underway to have our schools become more integrated and less segregated, regardless of what the courts do, please?

- Yeah, so at this point, there really is no solutions being made from the state.

So like you said, this lawsuit was filed in 2018.

We're still waiting a decision on that.

But pretty much this lawsuit is arguing that the state is responsible for addressing the fact that schools across New Jersey are segregated.

Again, we really haven't even touched on solutions yet, because we're still at the point where, you know, we're trying to find out who is supposed to address this problem.

So when we look at it- - Jessie, I'm sorry to interrupt, but proposed solution, for argument's sake?

So I live in Montclair.

Montclair, and I've said this in an earlier segment we did, have magnet schools.

There's the 1960's and '70's, Montclair desegregated the schools to a large extent and used busing to do that.

How about this?

Montclair, Glen Ridge, neighboring town, disproportionately white, they merged the public schools so it's one school system.

I'm not saying it's the solution, but wouldn't that integrate our schools more with white, Black and Latino kids more likely to be in school together?

- Well, it's a possible solution.

So right now, like I said earlier, under New Jersey law, students are supposed to go to school where they live.

And so if you ask a city like Newark to, you know, let's say desegregate its schools, Newark can't do that.

About roughly 8% of students are white in Newark schools, Newark public schools, so to say Newark could integrate their school district is sort of impossible.

Now, there have been other solutions proposed by advocates sort of along what you said, perhaps making county-wide school districts.

Newark is in Essex county and Essex County is pretty diverse in itself.

So that might be a possible solution.

But again, at this point in time, there hasn't been an official solution or solutions floated, you know, by the state or state officials because we're still at the point to find out who is going to address this issue.

- So no one's stepping up and we're waiting for the courts.

Let me, shift gears if you can.

The teacher shortage.

How real is it, particularly in cities like Newark, please?

- Well, teacher, it's, I mean, it's happening everywhere and across the country, and we see that especially in Newark.

But I think that the larger problem here too is in terms of segregation is how diverse teachers are.

So we did a deep dive on teacher demographic data in Newark, and we found that there's an unproportionate number of students of color to teachers of color.

And so specifically we know that white teachers make up a majority of the teaching staff at one in five district schools.

And Black teachers make up the majority a little bit more than one in four schools.

But more strikingly, there is no school in the district, Newark public schools, that has a majority Latino teaching staff, even though roughly half of all public schools have a majority Latino students.

So it is a problem when it comes to diversity among teachers.

So it's one thing to fill classrooms with teachers, but it's another thing to be mindful of how to actually fill them and making sure that those teachers represent the student body - Well said.

Jessie, let me follow up on this.

You and your colleagues at Chalkbeat doing a great job journalistically keeping us abreast of what we need to understand, doing the research, the investigative reporting, et cetera.

In terms of learning loss post-COVID, whatever post-COVID means, is it disproportionately worse in urban communities, the learning loss for our students?

Please.

- Well, at least in Newark, what we're seeing, and we're really seeing this across the state, is there was a big drop in 2022 spring state test scores in New Jersey.

We saw, you know, those scores drop dramatically in both math and reading.

So in Newark there is a very big push to make sure these kids get back up to speed.

So much so that the mayor in Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka, he actually launched a 10-point action plan to make sure that students are reading, that they're refining their literacy skills, and that Newark Public Schools are also implementing tutoring within the school day, whether that be before or after or during.

'Cause again, a lot of students need help to get back up after COVID.

I mean, we know that COVID disrupted student learning, and it also had an impact on their emotional and mental health as well.

So all of these things combined with seeing teachers that don't look like them and, you know, the different experiences these students are having have really contributed to what we're seeing today in schools.

- We've been listening to and watching Jessie Gomez, reporter at Chalkbeat Newark.

Their website has been up to find out more of the important work they're doing journalistically about education.

Jessie, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's Jessie Gomez.

We'll see you next time.

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