well summer school also started in Newark this week where the district identified more than 10 000 students in need of extra academic help much of it stemming from pandemic era learning loss a new report out today from advocates for children of New Jersey found a drop in math and English test scores for Newark students but there are also some bright spots including a rise in graduation rates joining me now to discuss these findings and what they mean for kids in New Jersey's largest city is acnj president and CEO Mary Coogan married good to have you on the show the biggest takeaway for me let's start with the education part of this was that these achievement gaps were there prior to the pandemic they just widened talk to me about that correct well thank you for having me um yes they did and I think it's understandable given the learning loss that we saw across the state but particularly in urban areas as kids had to transition from being in school to then virtual and they didn't all have their computers they needed they didn't have the resources they needed and now they've had to come back into the school environment and that's brought some additional stresses anxiety and the teachers are stressed there's not enough Aid so we do need more resources in the schools and yet we hear a lot of talk about not putting so much emphasis on these State uh you know mandated tests but it does give us a snapshot I mean we're talking about 19 percent of third graders per year report met or exceeded expectations in English language arts but that's compared to 42 percent of third graders Statewide so what is Newark missing what are our urban areas missing that is now needed and they're not getting well well I think we do need some additional resources I think you may need more tutoring programs you just might need programs to support kids socially you're going to see the stresses of the shutdown you are going to they have teacher shortages there are not AIDS in every classroom but I think we also have to address issues that kids might have outside the school what else did the report tell us just about the makeup of the city right now what it looks like now in 2023 well to me it was really interesting because we knew Newark was diverse but I think it really shows how diverse it is so for example over 51 percent of Children and Families are speaking a language other than English at home and that's a self-report because that census data and I didn't anticipate that to be that high about 14 percent of the child population in Newark were born outside the country so we have a huge immigrant population and while that brings great diversity and really brings cultures here and other foods and we can learn a lot it does mean we need some resources so you need doctors and nurses who speak other languages you need teachers who speak other languages just providers in general we're talking about doing a kids count and translating into Spanish for the first time and we've done the Newark kids count for 25 years but it does make you realize even in terms of engaging the community you need to have more just people who look like people in the community let me ask you about Mary some of the positive Trends specifically looking at the graduation rates that was a bright note here in this report were you anticipating that well I mean we'd seen it going up gradually but it's at 85 percent for the Newark Public Schools some of the charter schools are the same as the state which is at 91 percent so I think that's you know great news for the city and it's great news for the students and I think it's showing that the kids can learn and they can go on to higher education which is where we're hoping they're going to go I think what we did see in covet is not as many kids enrolled in college hopefully that's going to change and we'll see more of these students yeah really rebounding Mary Coogan president and CEO of advocates for children of New Jersey thanks so much well thanks for having me