2026 Spring Fellow

Jadon Kim

Jadon Kim is a high school student at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey. He is passionate about public policy, economics, and civic leadership, with a particular interest in the ways government and institutions shape opportunity. Through his work at YIP he hopes to promote civic engagement and youth involvement in public affairs. Jadon hopes to study economics and public policy in college and use his work to help create meaningful change in communities.

No items found.

Zoned Inequality: Housing Policy in Educational Access and Economic Mobility

Capstone Project

This policy paper looks at how New Jersey's past policies created today's inequities in educational opportunity, and makes the case for reforming how we fund education alone to resolve historically based disparities caused by where people reside. It reviews major court decisions regarding housing policy, such as Abbott v. Burke, as well as the Mount Laurel Doctrine, and compares them to Connecticut's Sheff v. O'Neill litigation regarding representation of children in racially mixed districts who attend school outside of their residential communities. It provides examples of current policy efforts and describes their shortcomings. It proposes three separate, yet related reforms: (1) expand inclusionary zoning with mandatory proximity to high performing schools; (2) adjust district boundary line configurations to better reflect racial demographics of districts; and (3) reset New Jersey's School Funding Reform Act to include an additional weight for children from historically redlined neighborhoods to address housing-related disadvantage. Collectively these suggested reforms seek to enable children to achieve their economic and educational success independent of where they live.

Explore

All articles by the author

No items found.

Policy Briefs by the author

No items found.