When Brown v. Board of Education was passed and public schools across the country slowly trod toward desegregation, many pro-segregation parents enrolled their children in private schools rather than allow them to share a classroom with black students. We can hear echoes of this sentiment in Connecticut School Board Chair Allan Taylor’s opposition to redistricting students in Fairfield.
In Fairfield, time to face the glaring racial imbalance in CT schools
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Malloy proposal today to kick off a grueling budget season
The governor’s new, two-year budget would avert $3.6 billion in projected deficits, seek $700 million in annual labor concessions, redistribute local aid to shield poor cities, require municipalities to cover one-third of Connecticut’s teacher pension costs and allow municipalities to levy the property tax on hospitals.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Trump attempt to rein in drug prices may have limited success
WASHINGTON – The president’s spokesman says Trump still favors a plan to negotiate Medicare prices, but he did not mention it after a recent meeting with pharmaceutical executives, and his plans to speed FDA approval of new drugs may be hampered by his restrictions on new regulations and cuts to the federal workforce.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
GOP, Malloy offer plans to restore stalled local aid
Republicans in the state House and Senate and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy both released proposals Tuesday to restore stalled municipal aid that local officials hoped to receive this fiscal year.
Posted inHealth
CT Obamacare exchange enrollment down 3.9 percent
The open enrollment period for Connecticut’s health insurance exchange ended with 111,524 people signed up for private health plans – approximately 4,500 fewer than last year.
Posted inEducation, Politics
With Pence casting historic vote, DeVos is confirmed by Senate
Updated at 4:45 p.m.
WASHINGTON — With the help of Vice President Mike Pence, the Senate on Tuesday confirmed charter school advocate Betsy DeVos to head the U.S. Department of Education. As a lightning rod candidate, DeVos’s confirmation provoked mixed reactions from school groups in Connecticut. .
Posted inPolitics
Connecticut Democrats embrace Trump as organizing tool
The Connecticut Democratic Party has averaged an email “alert” every other day since Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, using the president’s pronouncements on Obamacare, voter fraud, abortion, financial regulation and immigration to expand and energize the Democratic base. So far, Democrats say, Trump has produced results.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Mr. Ryan, the Affordable Care Act saved my husband’s life
Dear Mr. Paul Ryan, I am writing you about the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I write to you as a mom, wife, daughter and friend of those whose lives have been helped in many crucial —several life-saving– ways by the ACA, and who stand a lot to lose by its repeal, whether or not they even know it.
Posted inMoney
Labor savings is the big unknown in Malloy’s new budget
The new budget Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will propose Wednesday will be based partly on a big assumption — that ongoing talks with state employee unions will produce concessions. But some are worried that to get them, the state must promise to maintain a costly retirement benefits system beyond the current 2022 expiration date.
Posted inJustice, Money
Big pot of money waiting if CT legalizes marijuana, analysts say
Connecticut could bring in $45.4 million to $104.6 million a year in revenue if the legislature legalizes marijuana in the same way Massachusetts or Colorado have, Connecticut’s nonpartisan fiscal experts say.
Posted inPolitics
Malloy to address Democrats planning strategy in Baltimore
WASHINGTON — Gov. Dannel Malloy will be among the speakers when Democrats gather in Baltimore later this week to plan strategy in the time of Trump. As head of the Democratic Governors Association, Malloy will address the Democratic National Committee’s “Future Forum” as the party that saw its clout shrink in the election regroups this week in the Maryland city.
Posted inNews
Connecticut supports challenge of Trump’s immigration order
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen joined 15 counterparts Monday in filing an amicus brief in support of Washington state’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations.
Posted inEducation, Money
Malloy proposes shaking up state education aid
NEW BRITAIN — Standing in the library of an elementary school that was at the center of a recent school-funding trial, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Monday released his plans for redistributing existing levels of state education aid in ways he said would help the most impoverished school districts.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Jewish leaders oppose Trump’s executive order on immigration
We, the undersigned Jewish Federations throughout the State of Connecticut, along with JFACT (Jewish Federations Association of Connecticut) and the Anti-Defamation League of Connecticut, oppose President Trump’s Executive Order barring many refugees and immigrants from entering the United States. President Trump’s Executive Order, issued on Friday, January 27, bans any refugees from entering the United […]
Posted inEducation
School funding reform: Ideas and challenges aplenty
With the governor set to lay out his proposals for education aid this week, numerous advocacy groups, rank-and-file legislators and a group suing the state over school funding have been pitching changes they would like to see. The bulk of the ideas are not new – but most would be controversial or expensive.