Fewer than 30% of Newark students in grades 3-8 were considered proficient on New Jersey's state tests during the 2025-26 school year, with rates ranging from 13.7% among eighth graders to 29.1% among third graders. The results, presented to the Newark Board of Education on Thursday, October 29, mark the district's first look at scores from New Jersey's newly adopted adaptive testing system.
According to Chalkbeat, English language arts proficiency rates ranged from 22% among fourth graders to 35% among seventh graders. In Newark Public Schools, third graders met or exceeded expectations in English language arts at a rate of 24.3%, compared with 48% statewide, according to the NJSLA-Adaptive results detailed in the district presentation, as reported by TAPinto Newark. Fourth graders came in at 22%, fifth graders at approximately 25%, sixth graders at 27.9%, eighth graders at 33.6%, and ninth graders at 34.7%, per the same TAPinto Newark account by reporter Nicole Zanchelli.
A New Test With New Rules
The New Jersey Student Learning Assessment-Adaptive was administered statewide for the first time in spring 2026, per TAPinto Newark. New Jersey students in grades 3 through 11 took the new adaptive standardized tests that spring, according to NJ.com. Unlike prior versions, the NJSLA-Adaptive adjusts question difficulty according to students' responses, uses five performance levels, and sets passing scores that vary by subject and grade, the TAPinto Newark report notes.
District officials cautioned that changes to test content and scoring prevent direct comparison with previous years' results, Chalkbeat reported. Rachonda Jackson, the district's executive director of data and research, urged caution about longitudinal comparisons of test results, warning that inappropriate statistical and methodological considerations could lead to inaccurate conclusions about changes in student achievement, according to the TAPinto Newark account. Jackson also reported declines in overall performance in third, fourth and seventh grades and in geometry, per that same report.
Math Shows Gains, Reading Lags Behind
Math proficiency increased across all tested grades and courses compared with the previous year, reaching within 0.6 percentage points of pre-pandemic levels for the first time, Chalkbeat reported. The district reported math proficiency improvements in grades three through eight, Algebra I and geometry, per TAPinto Newark's account of the presentation. Still, Newark sixth graders met or exceeded math expectations at just 18.4%, seventh graders at 21.8%, and eighth graders at 13.7%, according to that report.
Statewide mathematics passing rates ranged from 22% to 50%, though the state had not released all mathematics performance data for comparison, per TAPinto Newark. Newark general education students in grades three through six had passing rates below statewide all-student rates by 7 to 10 percentage points, the outlet reported. Students taking Algebra I at Sussex Avenue School, Lafayette Street School, East Ward Elementary School, Bridge Street School, Ann Street School and Oliver Street School passed the assessment at a rate above 90%, according to the same presentation.
About two-thirds of Newark students demonstrated typical or high growth in math, while roughly 60% did so in English language arts, per Chalkbeat. TAPinto Newark put those figures more precisely at approximately 66.5% of tested students showing typical or high mathematics growth and approximately 59.5% showing typical or high ELA growth, noting that the student growth percentile measure accounts for students' prior performance when measuring progress. Former English learners performed at or above the state average in grades three, four, six, seven and eight, the outlet reported.
Some Schools Outpacing the State Average
The district's presentation identified 13 schools exceeding the statewide ELA proficiency average across various grade levels, according to TAPinto Newark. Michelle Obama Elementary School exceeded the statewide average in third grade, Newton Street School did so in fifth grade, and Park Elementary School and George Washington Carver exceeded it in sixth grade, per that report. Mount Vernon School, Ann Street School, Lafayette Street School and Oliver Street School exceeded the statewide ELA average in seventh grade, while Science Park High School, Lafayette Street School and Oliver Street School did so in eighth grade.
In ninth grade, Science Park High School, Technology High School, University High School, Bard Early College and the Academy of Architecture and Interior Design at Arts High School were identified as exceeding the state ELA average, TAPinto Newark reported. On the math side, the district identified 31 schools exceeding the statewide mathematics average, and 40 schools when comparing general education students with statewide all-student rates, according to the same presentation.
District Response and Curriculum Shifts
Newark has expanded tutoring, summer and Saturday-school programs, and introduced a new English language arts curriculum to support academic recovery, according to Chalkbeat. Superintendent Roger León told board members at the district's summer retreat in August that the district plans to move away from embedding social studies in early-grade ELA instruction, an approach the district had used for about 10 years, per TAPinto Newark. León raised the shift again in September, the outlet reported.
The new numbers follow a separate measure of Newark's performance from last spring: only 34% of Newark Public Schools students in grades 3-9 passed the state's English Language Arts test in the spring of 2025, compared with 53% statewide, according to NJ.com. That 34% figure represented a slight improvement from levels seen right after the pandemic, though it still trailed the state average, the outlet reported. Newark third graders specifically passed the 2025 state ELA test at a rate of 27.7%, compared with 53% among New Jersey third graders statewide, per TAPinto Newark's account of the district presentation.
