Long before the White House began slashing federal resources, decades of disinvestment in Connecticut’s public higher education had already undermined student learning opportunities. In a recently published op-ed, the president of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated UConn-AAUP (in photo, above) urged the governor to step up now and fill the rapidly worsening gap. English Professor Chris Vials called for the resources needed to defend our communities against “people who think learning just leads to ‘wokeness:'”

Governor Ned Lamont’s budget address in February had much in it to be admired. He talked about investments in affordable housing geared toward walking cities. He flew against the national mood by affirming the value of immigrants. And he showed a willingness to “rethink” the volatility cap, the biggest fiscal guardrail, the one that sets aside capital gains and other taxes on investment from the one percent.

But one very important thing that the governor did not mention was a sizeable cut to public higher education. If the governor’s proposed budget passes the state legislature, my institution of the University of Connecticut (UConn) would be left with a significant deficit of $84.1 million for the upcoming fiscal year and UConn Health would be left with a $79.7 million deficit.

This is a giant problem for our state for a number of reasons.

First, in the weeks since the governor’s speech, it has become clear that our new federal government has put a target on colleges and universities. Federal grants form a sizable portion of university budgets. With their attacks on grants from the National Institute of Health, it is clear that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk regard even cancer and Alzheimer’s research as “woke.” All categories of federal grants are at risk and I doubt they will stop there: even the future of federally-subsidized student loans are uncertain because of an administration that sees colleges as unnecessary.

Even if some of those federal funds dry up, it would be a devastating loss for our colleges and universities. Scientific research would shrivel on the vine, and the loss of revenues would be passed on to the students. Now more than ever, we need the state to step up and shore up our public higher education system.

But here’s a dirty little secret: because of inadequate state investment, colleges and universities have already been forced to pass the cost along to students.

Students and parents have been feeling the sting of higher college costs for quite some time. The pain is quite real. Nationally, the cost of tuition and fees has been rising faster than the general rate of inflation (CPI) for at least half a century. The trend has abated in the past few years, but a dramatic spike in the sticker price of a college education from the late 1970s to the mid-2010s has made the expensive degree a new normal. From 1978 to 2012, the consumer price index climbed 275%, yet college tuition increased 1,120% over this same period.

Faculty salaries are not leading this rise. More and more, public colleges and universities have resorted to hiring much cheaper “contingent” faculty to staff their classes: that is, adjuncts and lecturers not on the tenure track. In fall 2021, two-thirds (68%) of all college and university faculty members in the US held contingent appointments, compared to about 47% in fall 1987. And about half of these instructors in 2021 were part-time, frequently lacking health or pension benefits. This trend toward hiring more contingent faculty is only accelerating.

Even within existing faculty ranks, faculty salaries have not kept up with inflation. Here, where I teach at the University of Connecticut, many full-time faculty have seen real decreases to their take home pay since September 2020, according to research by UConn political scientist Lyle Scruggs. Nationally, as of June 2024, the average salary of full-time faculty members in inflation-adjusted terms was 3.8 percent less than the average salary in fall 2008.

If faculty salaries are not the cause of rising college costs, what is? There are many contributors, but by far the biggest factor should be obvious: declining state support. Historically, public schools were so much cheaper than private schools because they were public. That is, state governments supported them with enough funds to make the cost of college minimal for several generations of students after World War II. As neoliberalism’s privatization craze took off, states whittled down their long-standing commitments to affordable education.

Connecticut is no exception. Lamont has said multiple times that state funding for higher education is higher than it’s ever been, but that’s true only if you don’t account for inflation.

According to Scruggs’s data, the size of UConn’s block grant fell by 32% in inflation-adjusted terms from 2010 to February 2025; if you reckon it per undergraduate student, it fell 46% over this same time frame. As reported by the CT Insider, the part of UConn’s budget covered by state aid dropped from 50 percent in 1991 to 26% in 2023. Back in its postwar funding peak in 1955-56, UConn got 72% of its income from the state. That same year, the total annual price of attending UConn (including room and board) would have been $8,876 in today’s dollars. It’s close to $40,000 for an in-state student today.

And as my colleague Jeffrey Ogbar pointed out last year, peer institutions like the University of North Carolina and the University of Kansas that get a comparable portion of their budget from the state have endowments that are many times higher than UConn. Last year, theirs were $5 billion and $2.3 billion respectively, while UConn’s endowment was a mere $600 million. Until UConn builds up a solid endowment (which it is currently trying to do), there will continue to be intense pressure on administrations to raise tuition and fees when the state doesn’t come through on its investments.

Inadequate investments in public higher education mean higher tuition and fees for students. It’s that simple. Even if tuition and fees stay flat this upcoming fiscal year, they won’t be able to stay there for long unless the state steps up.

The federal government is run by people who think learning just leads to “wokeness:” ending teaching and scientific research appears to be their answer. The new regime in Washington will make the problem much worse if the state government does not use some of its abundant surpluses to fill the gap. Let’s not forget that the state is projected to have a $1.6 billion surplus next year. We’re not broke: far from it.

Governor Lamont: step up and shore up. Connecticut’s colleges and universities need your support now more than ever.

Editor’s note: Vials’ original op-ed was published at CT Viewpoints.

The post Calling for a Renewed Commitment to the Common Good first appeared on AFT Connecticut.

In the first four months of the Trump Administration, communities across the state and nation have suffered unprecedented cuts to vital publicly-funded services. In a recent post for our national union’s Medium blog, Brian Grindrod (middle, in photo above), a member of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the story of a relevant example. He shared how young people with limited access to resources risk losing out on a program that has served as “a great equalizer:”

If you hear that funding has been cut for teaching students about the Constitution, you might not think that’s a great tragedy. How is constitutional law relevant to teenagers’ lives, anyway? Don’t they need basic reading, writing and arithmetic?

But if you hear that students lose out on learning research skills they’ll need if they go on to college, that they’ll miss building the confidence they need for first job interviews, won’t get to practice the teamwork modern workplaces demand, and will lose out on gaining a deeper understanding of how exactly their own country works – and their own role in maintaining a vibrant community and a thriving democracy – you might pay more attention. And you might understand just how much cuts to public education will hurt our students.

Click here for press reporting on our members’ efforts to protect kids from threats to their learning opportunities.

I am a history teacher at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, and every year I guide my students through the We the People program. I witnessed how this experience can transform a classroom, because I was trained to teach these kids on a whole new level. I owe that to the federal SEED (Supporting Effective Educator Development) grant that provided me with such training through the James Madison Legacy Project. This research-based grant made me a better student of the U.S. Constitution and better teacher to my students.

This valuable program inspired me to become a mentor to other teachers. Now, I may not be able to help others profit from this professional learning because similar grant funding has been eliminated.

That is a loss for history teachers like me, but mostly it is a loss for our students.

Click here for initial reporting featuring Grindrod’s remarks on cuts to the program and similar federal grants.

On paper, We the People is all about the study of the Constitution. But dig a little deeper – or just visit my classroom – and you’ll see it’s actually all about students working together, trading responsibilities, and practicing leadership and cooperation. It’s about students learning to move outside their comfort zones – literally – when they speak before their peers or go to a federal courthouse, a college lecture hall, or even to Washington, D.C., to compete with young people from all over the country. It’s about kids learning that failure can be unnerving, but the success that comes after making a few mistakes feels that much sweeter.

For a group of students who have limited access to resources – such as well-funded schools and top-notch facilities – We the People is a great equalizer. Every student, regardless of what kind of neighborhood their family lives in, can benefit from the program, which is about as far from worksheets and multiple choice tests as you can get.

This experiential learning program takes kids through deep learning about a constitutional topic – like voting rights or freedom of expression – and then teaches them the skills they need to discuss and debate it in historical and contemporary contexts. Then they go before a panel of adult judges who act as members of Congress and they participate in a mock congressional hearing, defending their ideas and demonstrating their knowledge.

Click here to learn more about the program from the Center for Civic Education.

Students start with a silly warmup we call the Candy Congress. Teams of students are each given a piece of candy, and they work up an argument about why their candy should be the official candy of the United States. They might talk about the history of the candy, the way the wrapper represents the country, or how its taste sets it above all the others. They come up with introductory speeches and answer follow-up questions to defend their choice.

Topics are more serious as the program progresses, but the emphasis is on what we call “civic dispositions and virtues.” We are teaching constitutional concepts, but we are teaching them through empathy, compassion, respect and individual responsibility – all transferable skills, 21st century skills, and all hallmarks of engaged, effective citizenship.

All of this takes place in the classroom; we prepare and even practice mock hearings right at school and in a federal courtroom. But some students are able to take it to another level, at the state or even national competitions. These events open doors to broader thinking, help kids develop self confidence and teach them more about the Constitution than many adults know.

Click here to learn more about local sponsorship of the program from the Connecticut Democracy Project.

We the People was launched in 1987 when a commission chaired by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger established it as part of the Constitution’s bicentennial. Since that time, more than 75,000 educators and 30 million students have participated in mock congressional hearings in every state and the District of Columbia, arguing and discussing key points of the Constitution with judges posing as members of Congress.

In 2023, my class participated in the Connecticut We the People event and won the John Lewis award, a scholarship reserved for students from high-needs schools who can use the money to attend the national competition in Washington, D.C.

Without that opportunity, my class would have never been able to compete and do well at the national finals. Connecticut is dominated by wealthy suburban schools that are competitive and have more advantages and access to preparation resources, which my students do not have. Without the training and support I received from the We the People grant and its network of educators, I would never have been able to prepare my students for this trip of a lifetime.

Click here for reporting on the 2023 scholarship award for Grindrod’s team.

I love the fact that my students were informed and prepared enough to argue, among other things, about whether direct democracy practices – like ballot questions – are a fair way to create policy. Most members of Congress are older, wealthy people, the students argued, and might not represent the younger, lower-income people in their district who should be able to vote directly on issues that matter to them. On the other hand, many people can’t make it to the polls to cast their votes, others argued, so the policy might exclude too many from the process.

This is critical thinking that will serve my students long after they graduate. But I also love the fact that a star student who is comfortable speaking in front of the school board and state legislature, and has advocated for more funding for the district, is working on a team with a student who told me privately that he didn’t think he had the ability to compete in We the People, that he didn’t want to go to college and “just” wanted to be a mechanic. Watching those students work together, and later seeing that future mechanic finish the competition with pride — that’s the real value of this program.

For the past two years in my region, the Center for Civic Education has brought this program to elementary and middle school teachers in Title I schools through a SEED grant. “We the People: Civics that Empowers All Students” provided 36 hours of professional development at the University of Massachusetts-Boston the past two summers, allowing for follow-up meetings with participants who could check in with more seasoned educators and adjust their lesson plans and approaches to be as effective as possible with their students throughout the school year. After several years of teaching and participating in We the People competitions, I am now a mentor for teachers new to the program.

Click here for reporting on the local impact of federally-funded service cuts quoting Grindrod and fellow union members.

That funding is now gone for elementary and middle school teachers, and with it the opportunity for teachers like me in high-needs schools to offer this incredible learning opportunity to their students.

Losing a program like this strikes at the core of what education is all about. As I told the Associated Press, the students are always the ones who lose out.

Click here for Grindrod’s original “AFT Voices” blog post at Medium.

The post Protecting Communities that Depend on Us first appeared on AFT Connecticut.

In January, history was made when two long-dreaded federal provisions that unfairly slashed Social Security payments for millions of public employees were finally eliminated. The law rescinding the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) was a moment of triumph for the grassroots activists who have spent decades advocating for their repeal. Among them were countless active and retired members of AFT Connecticut-affiliated unions committed to justice for their labor siblings and themselves.

For decades, activists seeking to repeal the WEP and GPO heard the same dismissals: “Social Security reform is untouchable,” “no one wants to expand benefits,” and “it’ll never happen.” Our members, along with countless grassroots advocates across the nation, refused to back down.

They weren’t asking for extra benefits for anyone – just the rightful return of the system thatteachers and public employees in 15 states had already paid into.

Click here for our previous report on members’ advocacy prior to the Social Security Fairness Act’s passage.

Starting last summer, active and retired union members from across the country stepped up to advocate for parallel proposals in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Collectively they sent countless email messages, made untold numbers of phone calls and traveled frequently to the nation’s Capital to lobby in support of the Social Security Fairness Act.

One of those retirees to visit lawmakers in Washington, DC was former West Haven Federation of Teachers President Mary Moninger (at right in graphic, above). She was in the U.S. House of Representatives’ gallery last November when the lower chamber took up and passed with overwhelming bipartisan support their version of the legislation.

“This was certainly the most intense, exhilarating and important mission that I’ve ever been engaged in,” Moninger said at a press conference in December. “It became devastatingly personal two years ago when my husband died and I got nothing from all the money he put into Social Security.”

Click here for press reporting on the final passage of the bill quoting Moninger.

AFT Connecticut Retirees-at-Large Council President Walter O’Connor, RN (left) was one of the many labor leaders who coordinated efforts back home. He spearheaded our state federation’s member mobilization in the months that led up to Congress taking action.

“We needed to act collectively to move our representatives and senators in Washington to ‘repeal the steal,'” said O’Connor, who previously served as leader of our New Milford Hospital RNs. “We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make life better for retirees here in Connecticut.”

Members still actively teaching in classrooms across the state played an equally important role in moving the needle, particularly since the latest re-introduction of the legislation two years ago. New Haven Federation of Teachers leaders Marianne Maloney (second from left) and Jane Roth (second from right) were two of our most visible and vocal advocates for fairness in retirement security.

Click here for a post at our national union’s Medium blog featuring Roth and Maloney.

“I still feel like I need to be pinched,” said Roth, who previously served on the local union’s executive board. “We did this. A grassroots group of people actually changed a federal law. There was no magic, no money – just relentless determination.”

Maloney, the local union’s chief steward added, “for years, WEP/GPO blocked recruitment. We have a lot of teachers who are second-career educators, and to find out that they will now actually be able to depend on that money as they get older is huge.”

For aspiring future educators, repeal of the WEP and GPO will be nothing more than a footnote in history – a decades-long struggle overcome before they entered the profession. They have many labor activists like O’Connor, Moninger, Roth and Maloney to thank for assuring they’ll fully benefit from the contributions they or their spouse will make to Social Security.

Click here for reporting on the retroactive payments due next month to impacted public employees.

Editor’s note: contributions from Adrienne Coles, AFT.

The post Achieving a Historic Victory with “Relentless Determination” first appeared on AFT Connecticut.