Newark Superintendent Needs To Step Up Or Step Down

We all know Newark’s children are suffering, with most of them unable to read or do math: Currently only 29% of Newark district students can read on grade-level and only 15% are proficient in math. What is the plan put forward by Newark Superintendent Roger Leon to raise the academic achievement of our children?

He has no plan.

This was revealed last week by TAPinto, which reported that when NPS failed the State Department of Education’s report card on student academic growth, Leon’s response was to try to get out of the required Corrective Action Plan. In fact it was worse: He argued to the state that student achievement is moving forward even though it isn’t and insisted to then-DOE Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan that she should cut him a break and ignore how poorly our kids are doing.

This non-response—seems like insubordination to me—is so typical for Leon. He thinks we’re going to all sit back and trust that he and the school board are going to do the right thing even though there is a long catalog of ways in which they’ve done the wrong thing for kids. 

• Like Extending Leon’s contract behind closed doors; right now he’s making $308,971 a year!
• Making sweetheart deals with developers and spending huge amounts of money on litigation, including $5 million to build a “museum.”
• Spending Newark and state taxpayer money on luxury vacations.
• Refusing to release a report we paid for on anti-Black racism at the High School of  Global Studies.

This community deserves better for our children.

What happened in January when Leon begged the DOE to cut him some slack and ignore our students’ lack of progress despite a $1.5 billion annual budget? What happened when he asked them to let him get a pass on handing in his homework? The DOE said, “you are going to write a Corrective Action Plan because you’re not being compliant with state rules.” So Leon and the Board did—sort of. 

Their new goals for next year? Move that 29% reading proficiency to 33%, increase math proficiency to 23%, and, get this, decrease the rate of chronic absenteeism by “a minimum of half a percentage point.”  

How can we as a community accept a school leader whose goals for our children are so low? Who has no meaningful plan to help our kids succeed once they graduate from high school? 

We can’t. Enough is enough. We must demand more from our superintendent. The DOE didn’t stand for his arrogance. Neither should we. Roger Leon needs to step up expectations or step down.