Mayor Baraka Spotlighted Newark City of Learning Collaborative at Mayors' Institute in Louisville, Kentucky

Mayor joined city civic and corporate leaders to discuss partnerships to increase percentage of Newark residents with a post-secondary credential to 25 percent by 2025

Recently, Mayor Ras J. Baraka joined city civic and corporate leaders to showcase the Newark City of Learning Collaborative and Newark Alliance College-to-Career Agenda, two successful education initiatives, at the National League of Cities’ Mayors’ Institute on Children and Families: “Promoting Secondary Success” event in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Institute, sponsored by the Lumina Foundation, served as a two-day peer exchange enabling each participating city to explore their respective post-secondary education strategies promoting college readiness, enrollment, completion, and placement of graduates in employment opportunities represented in high-growth industries.

Mayor Baraka presented Newark’s college-to-career strategy by detailing elements of the partnership of the City of Newark and the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) working to increase the percentage of Newark residents with a post-secondary credential to 25 percent by the year 2025. The Mayor placed a particular emphasis on the City’s recent efforts to build sustainable partnerships with local and regional employers in support of college completion and workforce development.

“We clearly made our case about how Newark was similar and yet very different from the other cities in addressing these issues,” the Mayor said. 

Co-presenting with the Mayor, were Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) Executive Director Reginald Lewis, NCLC Co-Chair and Associate Director at the Victoria Foundation Associate Director Dale Anglin, and Newark Alliance Executive Director Kimberly Baxter-McLain. 

“Newark is fortunate to have reached a stage in which its post-secondary work facilitated through NCLC has the full support of our Mayor and key corporate citizens represented by the Newark Alliance,” Mr. Lewis said.

Ms. Baxter-McLain underlined the private sector’s role: “The business community is poised to build on the Newark Alliance’s current workforce development initiative to create college-to-career pathways for Newark residents.”

Ms. Anglin put this broad, cross-sector collaboration in historical context: “It’s an exciting time for Newark. For the first time ever, we can say without reservation that all the key players are at the table pursuing the same agenda.” 

Working closely with the Mayor and the Newark Alliance, NCLC will leverage the technical assistance of the National League of Cities and the Lumina Foundation to further support college-to-career attainment in Newark. The collaborative will also align with the newly formed Summer Youth Employment Corporate Consortium with the aim of expanding workforce readiness pathways and opportunities for Newark’s youth.

For more information about the City of Newark, NCLC, and Newark Alliance, click on the respective heading below.

City of Newark
Newark City of Learning Collaborative
Newark Alliance