New Jersey leaders sound the alarm on low literacy rates and the need for solutions

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Mark Comesañas recalled a former student, Jose, who arrived at adulthood without a critical skill needed to navigate life: At 19, he couldn’t read a Dr. Seuss book.

“The options he has at 19 are slim,” said Comesañas, the executive director of My Brother’s Keeper Newark, during a panel last Thursday at Teach For America New Jersey’s inaugural One Day Breakfast event, which convened Newark leaders to talk about low literacy rates and solutions.

That story resonated with the policymakers and education leaders in the room, who are confronting a crisis impacting not only Newark but the nation. Too many students are not reading at grade level, and they are reaching adulthood without ever learning to read well.

Test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, from 2024 show that most students in the United States are still performing below pre-pandemic levels in reading and math, while the gap between high-achieving students and low-performing students keeps widening.

Last spring, only 34% of Newark Public Schools’ students in grades 3-9 passed the state’s English Language Arts test, and although those numbers lag behind statewide averages, they are a slight improvement from levels seen right after the pandemic. Across New Jersey, 53% of students passed the statewide English Language Arts test in 2025.

Teach for America New Jersey organized last week’s event to spread a call to action to ensure every child can read on grade level. The event addressed the history of reading in New Jersey and local challenges such as the barriers in Black and Latino communities that prevent students from boosting their literacy skills. The organization is also hosting a similar event in Camden in May.

“We have to get local and we have to stop trying to scapegoat,” Tahina Perez, the executive director of Teach for America New Jersey, told Chalkbeat on a call last Wednesday.

Perez said she saw the literacy issue coming years before the pandemic, as far back as 2018. At that time, Perez and her team were tracking the number of Black and Latino students, particularly those in low-income communities, who were falling behind in reading. Last week’s event was meant to continue local collaboration to find ways to address the problem in Newark.

“When children are confident and independent readers, communities grow stronger, democracy works better, and opportunity expands,” Perez said at the event last week. “And when we get this wrong, the consequences last a lifetime.”

Newark’s literacy crisis did not happen overnight. Remote learning during the pandemic caused students to miss critical classroom time, and in the city, Newark Public Schools, along with state and local leaders, are working to help students get back on track.

Research shows that reading skills play a key role in a child’s likelihood of graduating high school, pursuing college, and ultimately a career. Experts say a student’s literacy levels in third grade predict what their skills will be in the eighth grade and beyond.

Newark’s low reading rates have also drawn attention in Trenton, where New Jersey’s Republican lawmakers have questioned why literacy rates are so low. Assemblyman Alex Sauickie has called for more transparency about how Newark Public Schools is using its money to help students refine their reading and recently questioned district leadership.

“This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a moral one,” said Sauickie in a statement. “Taxpayers deserve complete transparency on where this money is going and why it is producing such poor academic outcomes.“

Yet in New Jersey, the systems meant to catch up students struggling to read are inconsistent, Paula White, executive director of JerseyCAN, a literacy advocacy group, told Chalkbeat. The state’s recently passed literacy framework mandates universal literacy screeners across all of New Jersey’s more than 500 school districts, but doesn’t require a specific screener or high-quality instructional materials. Similarly, literacy coaching is unevenly distributed, White said.

“You’re going to have some school districts that are in fantastic shape,” White added. “And then you’ll have a third that are just, quite frankly, rudderless.”

Perez also pointed to the larger systemic problems impacting Newark’s reading rates that she says aren’t just a “school problem, or a parent problem, or a student problem.”

“If we believe that education is a fundamental right from the moment you step foot on the soil, then we need to be thinking about the systems and the structures at play that prevent this from being true,” Perez added.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.