Welcome to the Renaissance City

Welcome to Newark, N.J.

Photo - Sharon McCloskey

It’s the nation’s third oldest city – after Boston and New York - founded in 1666.

It has parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and a cathedral, Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, that’s the fifth largest in North America, with spires higher than those of Notre Dame or Westminster Abbey.

Its waterfront is undergoing restoration, its international airport serves more passengers than any other in the New York metropolitan area, and its containerized industrial seaport is the busiest Atlantic Ocean seaport in the Western Hemisphere.

It hosts an NHL hockey team, a minor league baseball team, and a performing arts center that draws more than half a million visitors per year.

Its residents - over a quarter million of them - still identify themselves as hailing from the distinct neighborhoods and active political wards that mark the city’s boundaries.

And yet, few associate any of these assets with Newark. Instead, the once thriving leatherworks factory city is known more for its high crime, deep poverty, and urban decay.

Residents and city leaders are intent on changing that image.

It’s been called Brick City, Gateway City and New Newark. But perhaps the name most fitting today is Renaissance City.

Since riots racked the city in the 1960s, Newark has endured several aborted attempts at revival. Recent developments, though, are leading residents and visitors alike to believe that they may now be witnessing a rebirth with traction, stemming from an unlikely place. While investment opportunities in real estate and business have certainly caught the attention of glitterati, it’s the city’s charter schools that have captured the imagination of philanthropists and policy wonks alike.

Long one of the poorest cities in the nation — more than a quarter of its families live below the poverty line — Newark is the largest school district in New Jersey, with over 40,000 students in 74 public schools. The district has been under state control for over a decade because of poor student performance and a lack of fiscal accountability, although recently the state has ceded some control back to the city.

But out of the ashes of a charred public school district, charter schools have risen, bringing hope to those parents fortunate enough to enroll their children and rousing others to demand change from the public school hierarchy. Now 14 strong, charter schools are serving 10 percent of the Newark public school population – with one new school opening and two expanding in 2009, and six more pending state approval for 2010. They are home-grown for the most part, with the most successful – Robert Treat Academy, North Star Academy and Discovery Charter School – operating for a decade or more. But newcomers like KIPP’s TEAM network of schools are making inroads fast. Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker - a strong proponent of choice and charter school growth – has helped put the city’s charters on the map, and the powers that be have found their way there. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan showed up in Newark to promote the Obama administration’s education stimulus plan, and the Gates and Broad Foundations have sent dollars there.

Open mike at TEAM Academy (Photo Sharon McCloskey)

Though industry sectors of all types have tried, time and again, to lift Newark up by its bootstraps, it is education that might just well be doing the trick. And while promotion by the mayor and dollars from investors may be fueling change, it’s the children of Newark -responding and achieving - who are igniting the fire.

Let the children lead.