NEWARK, NJ — The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will be able to increase accessibility to STEM-based degrees and careers in Newark through an $800,000 grant recently awarded by the PSEG Foundation.
The aim of the grant monies, officials said, will be to expand STEM education, particularly for Newark residents, first-generation students and people in underrepresented communities that have been historically shut out from certain learning opportunities. The grant will cover a five-year period from 2022 to 2027 and include support for new need-based scholarships as well as research funding for local and underrepresented undergraduate students.
The grant also promises support for STEM initiatives and college-prep programs for local elementary, middle school and high school students, offered through the university’s Center for Pre-College Programs (CPCP). The CPCP currently offers STEM programs and services to more than 3,000 local elementary and secondary school students each year.
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If past is prologue, just a tiny fraction of Newark’s 165,000 voters will turnout for next Tuesday’s municipal election.
The likely anemic local voter engagement comes at a precarious time in our national narrative. Respected scholars are positing that a ‘democratic’ country where tens of millions of voters believe the last national election was stolen maybe actually be ungovernable.
That widespread distrust, when combined with the kind of apathy and voter disengagement that’s on display in a city like Newark should alarm us.
Even in 2020, when the nation set a record for the number of voters casting a ballot, only 49 percent of Newark’s voters turned out. By 2021, with Governor Murphy at the top of the ticket, just 20 percent bothered to turnout.
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Wilhelmina Holder, a prominent education activist in Newark who was beloved by many throughout the community, died at age 70.
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NEWARK, NJ — Wilhelmina Holder, an education activist in Newark who “worked tirelessly” and was beloved by many throughout the community, died at age 70, her family announced Sunday.
Holder, a graduate of Newark Public Schools, was a driving force behind advocating for improvement across city schools. Holder was a frequent speaker at Newark Board of Education meetings and a champion of equitable education in Newark, where she was esteemed by students and parents throughout the community.
“There were many, many kids that connected to her in a way that was truly amazing,” said Ron Chaluisán, executive director of Newark Trust for Education, where Holder served as a board member. “Everything Wilhelmina was - is what makes Newark such an amazing place.”
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, BUDGET/FINANCE WRITER | MAY 3, 2022
Some of the state’s most important transportation agencies enhanced services during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they still face a series of difficult challenges due to that ongoing health crisis.
That was a key takeaway for lawmakers after several high-profile department heads from Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration spent hours answering questions during the latest round of budget hearings in Trenton.
For example, the head of New Jersey Transit told lawmakers his agency has launched several new or improved services, like a “flex pass” to better accommodate customers who may now be commuting to work on a part-time basis coming out of the pandemic.
Yet NJ Transit continues to face questions about its long-term ridership outlook and fiscal health as the agency carries on operating without a dedicated source of state revenue.
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, CHALKBEAT NEWARK | MAY 2, 2022
In the Newark school district, where most students are Black or Hispanic, just 19% of juniors and seniors took an advanced course last year — about half the statewide rate. Above, students took a college-level class at East Side High School in 2018.
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When Rasheed Adewole’s friends from other high schools used to complain about their heaps of homework, he would feel a flood of shame.
The other teens, whom he met through a college-prep program, attended magnet and suburban schools in New Jersey that offered an array of demanding Advanced Placement courses. He attended a Newark charter school that offered just one advanced class: AP U.S. History, which he took his senior year. In most of his other classes, expectations were low and homework was scarce.
“The regular classes sometimes were just sad,” said Adewole, who graduated from Marion P. Thomas Charter School in 2017. “I felt like I was just going to school to sit there rather than to learn.”
Adewole, who is Nigerian American, was on the losing end of a stark divide in New Jersey. Students who are Black, Hispanic, or poor are far less likely than their white and Asian peers to take the most rigorous high school courses, including Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, which often serve as springboards to college.
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NEWARK, NJ — The race for Newark’s mayoral seat will feature a toe-to-toe battle in the city’s May 10 nonpartisan municipal elections between incumbent Ras Baraka and challenger Sheila Montague, an educator and community leader.
Coming into this year’s mayoral race, the heavily favored Baraka, a former principal in the Newark Public Schools system and city councilman who represented the South Ward from 2010 to 2014 and as an at-large council member from 2002 to 2005, will have to face the voters and defeat his opponent in order to win a third term.
Montague, a veteran teacher of 20 years in the Newark Public Schools system, a West Ward district leader and an active member of various community organizations, including Parents United for Local School Education and the People's Organization for Progress, is up to the challenge.
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April 7, 2021: Workers rally for COVID-19 relief aid. New Jersey later created a fund for undocumented immigrants and other workers excluded from pandemic relief programs
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Six months after New Jersey launched a fund for immigrants excluded from other forms of pandemic aid, only about 20% of applicants have received their checks, and thousands more are awaiting approval, state officials said.
The state Department of Human Services, which is overseeing the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund, said $18.1 million has been distributed to about 8,000 applicants. Another 28,000 applications are pending review or missing paperwork, DHS spokeswoman Eva Loayza-McBride said. Four hundred were denied.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration launched the $40 million fund in October using federal coronavirus aid. The program opened after months of rallying and protests by advocacy groups who said immigrant workers had lost jobs and money during the COVID-19 pandemic but were ineligible for federal stimulus checks or unemployment benefits.
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The opening of New Jersey’s legal weed industry at a dozen stores statewide last Thursday drew more than 12,000 customers, exceeding expectations, the panel that green-lighted the launch said Wednesday.
The state’s 12 participating dispensaries sold cannabis and cannabis products to 12,438 recreational cannabis customers for a total gross sale of nearly $1.9 million, according to the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
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Queen Latifah returned home to Newark on Tuesday, warmly welcomed by fans, family and public officials at a groundbreaking ceremony for a mixed-use project she is partnering with local developers to build in the city’s South Ward.
“I was born here, St. Michael’s Hospital, so this is definitely my home,” said Latifah, 52, who spent some of her early years in neighboring East Orange and Irvington. But getting back to Newark, she added, “This is where Sarah Vaughn is from, so I’m proud to be from here.”
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When the U.S. Justice Department concluded in 2014 that Newark cops routinely violated residents’ civil rights and used unjustified force, Mayor Ras Baraka called for a civilian complaint review board with subpoena power over the police.
So some people are perplexed over Baraka’s endorsement of former officer Louis Weber as an East Ward city council candidate on his slate in the city’s May 10 municipal election.
“It’s totally inconsistent with what he portrays to the public on where he stands with police,” said Sheila Montague, who is running against Baraka in a bid to become Newark’s first woman mayor. “How do you ask for subpoena power with the CCRB, but then you back a candidate like Weber. That’s ridiculous.”
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