Connecticut Sues Trump over $53 Million in School Funding

 

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined a coalition of 25 states in suing the Trump Administration over its unconstitutional, unlawful, and arbitrary decision to freeze $6.8 billion in funding for six longstanding programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education, including over $53 million for Connecticut schools alone.

Loss of this funding will cause immediate and severe harm to schools nationwide. Already, ongoing summer learning programs have been left unfunded. Tong and the coalition ask the court to declare the funding freeze unlawful – as courts have repeatedly done in other cases filed by Connecticut and the states– and to block any attempts to withhold or delay this funding.

“The White House has dropped an unnecessary and cruel bomb on students and their families. All Connecticut students - not just those most in need - will be jeopardized if local districts are forced to make up the difference. No one voted for starving children of their opportunity to learn. The White House should immediately back off and allow the resources Congress has already appropriated to be directed to classrooms here in Connecticut and across the nation,” said Mary Yordan, AFT Connecticut Vice President.

“Trump and Linda McMahon are stealing from Connecticut schools to fund tax cuts for billionaires, and its our kids and our teachers who are paying the price. We are talking about over $53 million already built into local school budgets in nearly every district in Connecticut for computers and technology, afterschool enrichment and field trips, social workers, English language instruction, teacher training, adult education and more,” said Tong.

“We stopped Trump when he tried to defund Head Start, when he tried to defund disaster relief and energy assistance, when he tried to defund our police, cancer research, and our libraries. We are back in court yet again to make sure our schools and our kids get every penny that our tax dollars paid for,” he added.

The lawsuit seeks both declaratory and injunctive relief—to declare the funding freeze unlawful and block Trump from withholding these critical funds.