Giving Compass' Take:

· In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Newark’s next superintendent, Roger León, talks about his past and the goals he has for the future of the school system and student success.

· What role do students play in León's plans? What role do teachers play?

· Learn more about education reform in Newark.

In the week since he was named Newark’s next superintendent, Roger León said he has received hundreds of congratulatory text messages and emails from teachers and former students from his 25 years working in the Newark school system.

“The very interesting common theme is that ‘we’re’ doing this,” León said. “That we’re going to go somewhere together.”

The son of Cuban immigrants who was raised in Newark and attended its schools, the 49-year-old León has envisioned this moment for decades. And so has the city: Since 1995, the state has controlled the district and appointed its superintendents. When the city’s elected school board finally regained authority over the district in February, many in the city assumed that the board would choose a Newark native to oversee the schools. (The board had tried to make León superintendent once before, but was overruled by the state.)

Still, León has his work cut out for him. He must help the district meet the requirements needed to fully return to local control, balance the district’s budget, work with the city’s many charter schools (who may be wary of his leadership), respond to demands from a teachers union eager to reassert its authority, and ensure that measures of student learning continue to show growth. (A recent study by researchers from Harvard found that students’ annual growth on state tests initially declined after reforms were enacted beginning in 2011, but rebounded in recent years.)

In his conversation with Chalkbeat, León talked about some of what he’s learned working in schools and his expectations for the future. Far from distancing himself from his predecessors’ policies, he praised some of the city’s charter networks, called past reform efforts “good work,” and suggested that he will keep in place an often controversial enrollment system.

Read the full article about Newark’s incoming superintendent by Patrick Wall at Chalkbeat.