Justin King

As Deputy Director of the Workforce and Family Program at the New America Foundation, Justin King focuses on issues of child well-being in the United States. He leads the effort, directed at Congress and the media, to increase the visibility and popularize the use of the Child Well-Being Index, America’s foremost long-term, aggregate measure of child welfare. In addition, he conducts research and provides support for other initiatives of the Workforce and Family Program.

Before joining the Workforce and Family Program, Mr. King was Senior Policy Analyst for the Education Policy Program at New America. In that capacity, he focused on efforts to create a coordinated system of high-quality early education available to all children, beginning at age three. He authored the policy briefs Closing the Achievement Gap Through Expanded Access to Quality Early Education in Grades PK-3 and Teacher Quality in PK-3: Challenges and Options. He also served as a regular contributor to www.higheredwatch.org, the Education Policy Program’s higher education blog, and assisted in the development of the Federal Education Budget Project website.

Mr. King spent over six years as a legislative assistant to former U.S. senator James Jeffords (I-VT). Over the course of his work in Senator Jeffords's office, he was responsible for a wide range of issues affecting children, including Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, welfare reform, child welfare, adoption, foster care, disability policy, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Mr. King participated in the House/Senate conferences that produced the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. He is a cum laude graduate of St. Lawrence University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in government.

Publications, Events and Press