Education Law Center (October, 2021)
The Education Law Center released the report Spending Targets Under the School Funding Reform Act. The report uses newly released data for the 2020-21 school year, demonstrating why comparisons of school district spending must consider demographic differences in student composition rather than relying on simplistic comparisons of per-pupil spending levels. Read more here.
New Jersey Institue for Social Justice (October, 2021)
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice released the report, Repairing the Cracks: How New Jersey Can Restore Black & Brown Communities Ravaged by Covid-19 and Systemic Racism. The report explores the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Black and other communities of color in the Garden State and proposes policies designed to address the immediate harm caused by the public health crisis and to create a stronger, more equitable New Jersey going forward. Read more here.
New Jersey Future (October, 2021)
New Jersey Future released the report, Local Options/Local Actions: Resilience Strategies Case Studies. This report looks at the impacts of rising seas, erosion, and coastal storms, including property damage, loss of property value, and declines in tax revenues in coastal communities in New Jersey. The report analyzes different innovative strategies that seek to protect against climate risks and guide communities toward a path of resilient development, fostering safe, healthy, and prosperous communities for generations to come. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (October, 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, To Protect and Serve: Investing in Public Safety Beyond Policing. This report examines how New Jersey can create a safer, healthier, and more equitable state for all by reimagining public safety and exploring crisis response models that are not led by police. The first sections of this report provide important historical context on how policing evolved into the system seen today. In short, the racialized history of criminal justice policies and practices, such as “broken windows” policing and the War on Drugs, encouraged aggressive policing tactics, skyrocketing incarceration rates, and larger police budgets. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (September, 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, Separate and Unequal: Racial and Ethnic Segregation and the Case for School Funding Reparations in New Jersey. The report examines the history, policies, and practices that negatively affect Black and Hispanic/Latinx students in New Jersey. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (July, 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, Redistricting: Where Do Incarcerated People Count? The report looks at prison gerrymandering and how communities where prisons and jails were built receive outsize representation based on their incarcerated population. Conversely, communities that have been disproportionately harmed by mass incarceration have had their populations artificially lowered by their incarcerated population, even though incarcerated people will inevitably require services, infrastructure, and representation upon their return. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (July, 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, How New Jersey’s Population Changed Since 2010 and What it Means for Redistricting. This report is an initial first look at the Census 2020 results and what they mean for redistricting. The report emphasizes that basic race and ethnicity data should be carefully considered when redrawing district boundaries to not dilute the voting power of racial and ethnic groups. As it stands, New Jersey’s state legislature is disproportionately white, with low representation from Asian and Latinx/Hispanic communities. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (July, 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, The Consequences of School Underfunding. The report examines New Jersey's school funding formula and the consequences of not fully funding it, including less competitive teacher wages, lower test scores, and larger class sizes. The report emphasizes that every child deserves a rich curriculum as outlined by New Jersey learning standards and that every child deserves the same access to highly educated and experienced teachers. Read more here.
Environment NJ Research and Policy Center (July 2021)
Environment NJ Research and Policy Center released the report Safe for Swimming? The report explains that runoff from paved surfaces, overflows from aging sewage systems, and manure from industrial livestock operations threaten the waters where Americans swim. These pollution threats are getting worse with climate change, as more extreme precipitation events bring heavy flows of stormwater. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (June 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, A War on Us: How Much New Jersey Spends Enforcing the War on Drugs. This report highlights state budget spending dedicated to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate residents for drug war violations over the past decade. The analysis is contextualized with the racist origins of drug war policies, comparisons of New Jersey’s drug war spending to spending on public health, and the stories of residents directly harmed by the drug war. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (April 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, Early Education Matters: Connecting High-Quality Pre-K to K-3 Classrooms. The report explains that investing in kids' early education, particularly those growing up in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, is one of a state's best policy choices. The report explains that when kids are young, they learn faster than they will when they're 13 or 35. In addition, given the connection between wealth and economic outcomes later in life, investments in early education provide opportunities to kids living in poverty that they otherwise wouldn't have. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (April 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, Blueprint to Secure a Just Recovery. The report sets a new vision for New Jersey that focuses on tax and budget, economic security, health, labor, education, public safety, housing, climate and environment, and democracy. The report analyzes the different areas that are critical to securing a just and equitable recovery. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (May 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released the report, StateTakeover of Camden Schools Did Not Improve Students’ Academic Performance. This report examines the impact of the state’s takeover on students’ standardized test scores and the criteria used most consistently by Camden’s state-appointed superintendents to gauge performance. The analysis finds no evidence that state control of the district improved standardized test scores in Camden. Read more here.
New Jersey Future (May 2021)
New Jersey Future released the report, Creating Great Places to Age for Every Person in Every Neighborhood. The report examines aging populations and how certain communities were not necessarily built with the unique needs of older people in mind. In addition, the report explains that expanding local aging-friendly investments more equitably across municipalities is essential for all residents. Read more here.
Read a thorough documentation of New Jersey's Census efforts, by lead author Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) with contributions from the Census 2020 New Jersey Coalition steering committee members (New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Make the Road New Jersey, Wind of the Spirit, Latino Action Network Foundation, League of Women Voters New Jersey, Asian American Federation, New Jersey Citizen Action, Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, and Action Together New Jersey), The Fund for New Jersey, and partners from the New Jersey Secretary of State’s Office and the regional office of the U.S. Census Bureau.
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, ACLU-NJ, and League of Women Voters of NJ (April 2021)
Fund grantees New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, ACLU-NJ, and League of Women Voters of NJ, together with members of the New Jersey Election Protection Coalition, release a report, Issues New Jersey Voters Encountered from October 15 through November 3, 2020. The report highlights the challenges posed in an election cycle during a global pandemic and notes that New Jersey administered a safe and sound election despite these challenges. Read more here.
New Jersey Future (March 2021)
New Jersey Future released a report, Warehouse Sprawl: Plan Now or Suffer the Consequences. The report looks at the growth of e-commerce, the volume of trade at the Port of New York and New Jersey, and how it has increased the amount of land needed for warehousing. The report calls for a regional perspective to ensure that Port-oriented storage and distribution functions are not consuming outlying lands that are better used for farming, recreation, or some other non-industrial use and that redevelopment opportunities near the Port that are ideal for warehousing aren’t instead allocated to some other land use that lacks the same location constraints. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (March 2021)
New Jersey Policy Perspective released a report, Roadmap to Electrifying New Jersey's Public Bus Fleet. The report examines the critical benefits of public transit, particularly for people of color and low-income populations. It also describes the environmental and public health perils of a diesel-based fleet and reviews electric buses' environmental and health benefits. The report offers funding recommendations along with recommendations for a smoother and more equitable transition from diesel to electric public buses. Read more here.
The Center for Non-Profits (February 2021)
The Center for Non-Profits released a report, Trends and Outlooks. The report is the latest in a series of annual surveys designed to gauge trends, experience, and expectations among New Jersey nonprofit organizations and explore the effects of the economy on New Jersey’s charitable community. This year the report also included the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the nonprofit sector. Read more here.
Make the Road NJ (February 2021)
Make the Road NJ released a report, Respect and Dignity, setting forth a four-year platform that advocates for reforms on the state and federal level in immigration, worker’s rights, housing, access to aid, health care, criminal justice, and democracy. Recommendations come from a participatory and iterative process with membership, including meetings, and workshops and are voted on and approved by Make the Road NJ membership. Read more here.
Education Law Center (February 2021)
Education Law Center released a report, From Courthouse to Statehouse and Back Again. The report analyzes how different strategies from litigation to research to grassroots organizing to communicating with the public can combine to achieve successful school funding reform in states. The report is the first of its kind in the field to explore these approaches in school funding reform. Read more here.
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (May, 2021)
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice released the report, To Record and Protect. This report focuses on why New Jersey needs a statewide first amendment policing policy. The report emphasizes that having a first amendment policing policy would protect residents’ rights to record and criticize police conduct, allowing communities to hold law enforcement accountable. Read more here.
New Jersey Policy Perspective (February 2021)
This report looks at the city of Camden, NJ, where the city now employs fewer Black teachers and more white teachers than it did two decades ago. The decline in Black teachers is primarily attributed to charter and renaissance school expansion, where charter schools are hiring fewer teachers of color. This expansion has also resulted in a less experienced workforce, as charter and renaissance teachers have far less experience than Camden City School District teachers. Read more here.
New Jersey Future (January 2021)
This report analyzes geographic trends in poverty in New Jersey over the past two decades. The analysis shows that the number of poor neighborhoods in New Jersey is growing, as is the concentration of poverty. Read more here.
Regional Plan Association (January 2021)
This report looks at how a federal infrastructure program can lift the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region. The report describes how the nation's recovery demands an infrastructure program that creates jobs, reduces racial and economic inequality, builds healthier communities, and prepares the U.S for climate change and public health emergencies. Read more here.
