well a new report finds kids in the state's largest city are making some major Headway in some areas of child well-being while progress continues to stall in others the latest newer kids count data report reveals fewer families are living below the poverty line in the city and median household income is increasing but learning loss for example continues to be a significant issue highlighting just how long lasting effects from the pandemic have been Mary Coogan is the president and CEO at advocates for children of New Jersey which puts out the annual report and she joins me here in studio to help us make sense of the data Mary so good to see you great to be here so um this data that you compile it's really about finding Trends right correct not so much what we saw specifically this year but this trend as far as learning loss was pretty significant what's happening with Newark students in particular so we've seen a slight increase in the recruitment of learning in terms of the English tests English language um and also in the math with the older children but it's not significant and more needs to be done I think what it really showed is there was a problem before the pandemic and the pandemic just exaggerated the problem and made us more aware of it so I know that the mayor had issued a 10-point plan last summer we are seeing as I said it's either stayed the same or gone up incrementally but more needs to be done we need to have more tutoring programs we need to have um you know teacher aids whatever they need the resources in the classroom right because I mean the longer this takes to get folks to get these students back up to speed the more potentially are falling behind correct so in the um report which is now we're putting it into Spanish um I'd say 42% of the residents living in Newark identify as Hispanic 22% of the students are are multilingual Learners which means they are not proficient in listening or in writing or in speaking in English so they can't learn in English right so we need to make those adjustments to make sure that they can learn in their own language while they're learning English this was the first year that you all put this report out in Spanish yes why was that so critical I mean of course you're you're talking about just the sheer number of folks in this in the city who are uh Spanish first language speakers are you thinking that this will make some gain some ground in terms of helping these families to know what the resources are and also what hurdles they may potentially be up against so the purpose of the kids count project is to compile data in one place on a variety of indicators we have a 100 indicators to really show a snapshot of how children are doing and we decided to translate into Spanish because the next step is to really make sure the community understands the data and that residents see the trends and that they can advocate for changes that they think are needed to make sure that their children are going to be as successful as they can be and then that information needs to be shared with the community providers you know people who provide direct service but also public officials as they try to Marshall limited resources Mary very quickly Before I Let You Go um what should parents take from this as they look to make sure that they're helping their kids in the best way possible well we have seen an improvement in attendance in school which I think is the first step chronic absenteeism those missing school or a significant amount of school those numbers are down this year compared to last year I do think that families need to understand that their children are not at the level of reading and math that they need to be to be successful in the future and so if they really want them to have some type of career but just no basic information in order to be successful they really do need to access whatever programs whether it be tutoring we want kids reading by third grade it's critical information uh we'll have the link on our website Mary Coogan thanks so much thank you [Music]