Last Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a $100 million donation to the state of Connecticut from the Dalio Philanthropies “to strengthen public education and promote greater economic opportunity.” The five year initiative is to be matched two-to-one by the state and unspecified private donors, with state funds this year coming from surplus dollars. On its surface, this sounds like good news. The New Haven Public Schools face a staggering $30 million deficit. Our children, ages 4, 8, 9, and 11, attend Columbus Family Academy and the Engineering Science University Magnet School.

The following essay — one of four to be published this week — appeared in the recently released 2018 KIDS COUNT Data Book, Taking Stock: Considering the Future of Child Well-Being and Family Opportunity in Connecticut.   It is published by The Connecticut Association for Human Services (CAHS), an affiliate of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT […]

They say that there are two most important days in our lives, the day that we are born and the day that we find out why. Many people are never fortunate enough to experience that second day. I was born on June 5, 1980, and I started working for Oak Hill, the state’s largest private provider of services for people with disabilities, on April 30, 2001. I was 20 years old, and I had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting myself involved in.

Decades of research continue to confirm the obvious; poverty is bad for children. As evidenced by a 2015 report from the Urban Institute, the more time children spend living in poverty, the worse their outcomes are across nearly every domain. Compared to their peers who are never poor, the nearly 40 percent of children who experience poverty at some point during their childhood fare worse in educational achievement and employment, teen births, and even involvement with the criminal justice system.  When we fail to alleviate generational poverty we prevent our children﹘and our society as a whole﹘from reaching their fullest potential.

To close observers of state politics, Gov.  Ned Lamont’s budget proposal was no surprise. More cuts in vital services and investments, but no tax increases for the wealthy. The General Assembly will undoubtedly produce a rather different document, but for now the governor’s budget is still the only game in town. However, progressives might look to Washington for inspiration.

Is it right to force a 25-year old man or woman to share intimate health details with his or her parents or spouse, for instance, when he or she is being treated for a sexually transmitted disease, substance use, or depression?

I have always admired people like Joe Biden — people who are not only capable of genuine, physical expressions of affection for perfect strangers, but who also seem to relish in it. Sure, I consider myself a compassionate person and I can physically express love and affection without hesitation with my wife and kids. But I have something of a mental-block for it when it comes to strangers and even for people in my church and my friends, and I recoil with horror at the thought of bringing that sort of feeling into the workplace.

For every dollar invested in high-quality early childhood education, the public saves $13 in the place of costs for special education, public assistance, unemployment benefits, and crime. Expanding eligibility for families in the Care4Kids program would greatly improve the lives of not only children and families but Connecticut taxpayers as well.

My interest in politics was sparked by a college course.  It was late 80s – early 90s and my professor made no attempt to disguise for his distaste for Reaganomics, epitomized by the “trickle down” economics policy the president embraced.  I graduated into the worst job market in decades and, brief Internet bubble aside, the years have shown the falseness of the premise that putting money in the hands of the top 1 percent of shareholders, investors and titans of industry would make its way down to stimulating economic prosperity for the majority of Americans– the recent tax cut to wealthy people and corporations included.

Water is life! Clean water is essential to our health, our environment and our economy. As a public health advocate and a homeowner with a private well, I was alarmed to read reports of PFAs found in Greenwich wells  and in water supplies all over the country.

This note is in response to a recent op-ed by a community college student published in CT Viewpoints. The Connecticut State College and University system fully agrees that community colleges can and must continue to be the most affordable, accessible option for students to receive a quality education in Connecticut. I applaud the author for being engaged in public discourse and making his voice heard on an important topic.

Hunters will be incentivized to kill wildlife and hunting will be expanded in the state under a revised version of a bill approved by the General Assembly’s Environment Committee that was aimed at establishing a black bear hunt in Connecticut.

I want to comment on the “Future of the Gas Tax? Running on Empty” article. The number of dedicated electric vehicles (EVs) is increasing as the article the article indicates, and Connecticut is collecting no road use tax, which needs to be addressed soon. The “Governor’s Council on Climate Change” looked at 2030 and out to 2050, but did not place much emphasis on near time transportation period and technology needs.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is backing clean solar power as an important way to address two economic goals: creating good-paying jobs, and lowering energy costs for commercial and residential ratepayers, to get our economy moving again. He has answered the challenge put forth by voters for the state to combat the most pressing issue of our time – climate change. He has set substantial, aggressive renewable energy targets for 2030 and 2050.