Our work supports education equity and urban well-being by connecting research, community voices, and civic action to enhance outcomes for the state’s most vulnerable learners and their caregivers.
Local Leader Spotlight
Love, Consistency, Authenticity, and Faith: Lessons from a City of Newark Community Organizer
This Local Leader spotlight features lifelong Newark resident, Ms. Katina Leake, a woman of faith, homeowner, and community organizer. She serves in an official capacity as the Community Organizer with the Urban League of Essex County. My interview with Ms. Leake revealed a life of commitment to community and compassion for humanity beyond her 9-to-5 in Newark’s Fairmount neighborhood.
Upcoming Event
We are excited to host the first session in the New Jersey Mathematics Equity Webinar Series.
This youth-centered conversation explores mathematics as a collective movement. Drawing on Prime Factors’ Double Up program in Newark, students and program leaders will share how they approach math as social, collaborative, and deeply human, countering the isolation and anxiety many young people experience in traditional classrooms.
Grounded in the legacies of the Freedom Schools and the Algebra Project, this webinar will explore what it means to reclaim math notation and meaning as something alive and connected to lived experience capable of addressing real-world problems and imagining new possibilities for young people.
Latest Publications
Swati Dontamsetti, Claudia M. Castillo-Lavergne, and Vandeen A. Campbell. 2026. Bilingual Education in the U.S. Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University-Newark.
Kim, Elisabeth. 2025. “Mandatory” FAFSA: What Have We Learned? Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University-Newark.
Russell, Shana, Kimaada Sills, Nakeefa Bernard, and Margaret Goldman. 2025. Freedom School Resource Guide. Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University-Newark.
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