By Brid­get Brons­don
UConn Jour­nal­ism

It start­ed almost right away. With­in nine days of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s return to office, he set his sights on edu­ca­tion.  

First, there was an exec­u­tive order tar­get­ing fed­er­al funds for schools said to “indoc­tri­nate” stu­dents with “gen­der ide­ol­o­gy.” The order threat­ened blue states like Con­necti­cut that have cur­ricu­lums includ­ing instruc­tion on gen­der iden­ti­ty and diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion.  

Then, the fed­er­al Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion was dec­i­mat­ed, with near­ly half its employ­ees fired in March 2025. This  includ­ed all employ­ees of the Office of Civ­il Rights, charged with inves­ti­gat­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion and pro­tect­ing civ­il rights in schools. How­ev­er, sev­er­al employ­ees were asked to return to work in Decem­ber as the office faced a large back­load of cas­es.

As the 2025–2026 school year approached, the admin­is­tra­tion announced it would with­hold bil­lions of dol­lars in fed­er­al aid to schools — includ­ing more than $50 mil­lion for Con­necti­cut — lead­ing to pro­gram can­cel­la­tions and lay­offs across the state and the coun­try. Though much of that fund­ing was ulti­mate­ly restored, uncer­tain­ty remains.  

“Edu­ca­tors are doing every­thing we can to meet stu­dents where they are, but we can’t do it alone,” Erin Daly, pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion Dan­bury chap­ter, said in an email. “We need sta­ble fund­ing, respect for our pro­fes­sion, and poli­cies that put kids — not pol­i­tics — first.”   

Across Con­necti­cut and the nation, pub­lic schools are fac­ing unprece­dent­ed ide­o­log­i­cal incur­sion from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment as the Trump admin­is­tra­tion uses fed­er­al fund­ing to tar­get DEI and sex­u­al edu­ca­tion pro­grams and pro­motes a par­ti­san plan for“patriotic” edu­ca­tion. As con­cerns also grow about immi­gra­tion raids in schools,  edu­ca­tors say they are fac­ing uncer­tain­ty and even fear in K‑12 class­rooms.  

Fed­er­al freeze sends ‘shock­waves’  

Since 1965, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has allo­cat­ed funds to pub­lic schools across the coun­try to sup­port aca­d­e­m­ic enrich­ment pro­grams such as spe­cial edu­ca­tion and sup­port for stu­dents liv­ing in pover­ty. But this year was dif­fer­ent. Just two months before the start of the school year, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion alert­ed states that it would with­hold near­ly $7 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing, jeop­ar­diz­ing about $53.6 mil­lion for Con­necti­cut schools. The funds dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impact­ed high-needs dis­tricts and stu­dents, sup­port­ing a vari­ety of pro­grams includ­ing migrant edu­ca­tion, Eng­lish learn­ing, before– and after-school pro­grams, adult lit­er­a­cy and teach­ers’ pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment pro­grams.  

Con­necti­cut was one of 25 states that sued the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in July over the fund­ing freeze, and soon after, 150 Democ­rats in the U.S. House, includ­ing four rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Con­necti­cut, signed a let­ter request­ing the release of “ille­gal­ly” with­held funds. Though the Trump admin­is­tra­tion released the funds on July 30, there were still con­se­quences for schools.   

“These funds should nev­er have been frozen in the first place,” Con­necti­cut Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong in a press release fol­low­ing the release of the funds. “While stu­dents and teach­ers pre­vailed today, this rever­sal does not undo all the long-term chaos, uncer­tain­ty and dam­age the Admin­is­tra­tion has inflict­ed on our schools and com­mu­ni­ties.” 

Many edu­ca­tors across the state agree, say­ing insta­bil­i­ty and a sense of untrust­wor­thi­ness from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment per­sist.  

“The biggest impact that [the freeze] had was the uncer­tain­ty,” said Michael Mor­ton, deputy exec­u­tive direc­tor for com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oper­a­tions for the School and State Finance Project. “There was a peri­od of time, cer­tain­ly, where dis­tricts were scram­bling to fig­ure out what to do, and then in a lot of cas­es that meant they were going to have to cut pro­grams or cut staff because they could­n’t afford to pay them.” 

The lack of clar­i­ty about fed­er­al fund­ing not only made it dif­fi­cult to bud­get and plan for pro­grams and ser­vices for stu­dents and fam­i­lies, but it also cre­at­ed a sense of unre­li­a­bil­i­ty between the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and dis­tricts across the state, Mor­ton said. 

Daly said the fund­ing freeze sent “shock­waves” through­out the state and left a harm­ful impact on the stu­dents and fam­i­lies in Dan­bury, affect­ing pro­grams that sup­port spe­cial edu­ca­tion, Eng­lish learn­ing pro­grams, men­tal health resources and nutri­tion ser­vices.  

“When those funds are halt­ed, even tem­porar­i­ly, it dis­rupts crit­i­cal sup­ports that many of our stu­dents rely on every sin­gle day. It also cre­ates uncer­tain­ty for fam­i­lies and edu­ca­tors who are already stretched thin try­ing to meet grow­ing needs with lim­it­ed resources,” she said.  

Freez­ing funds that direct­ly affect chil­dren sends “the mes­sage that pol­i­tics is being placed ahead of stu­dents,” Daly said.  

“Edu­ca­tors have always worked in good faith to serve every child who walks through our doors, but when that com­mit­ment isn’t matched by con­sis­tent fed­er­al part­ner­ship and sup­port, it becomes hard­er to believe that we’re all work­ing toward the same goal,” Daly said. “At its core, this isn’t about pol­i­tics — it’s about keep­ing our promise to stu­dents. Our schools need sta­bil­i­ty and invest­ment, not uncer­tain­ty.”  

DEI labeled as ‘indoc­tri­na­tion’  

Since Trump took office in Jan­u­ary 2025, fed­er­al fund­ing has been lever­aged to achieve ide­o­log­i­cal goals that seek to dis­man­tle DEI pro­grams and push a con­ser­v­a­tive view of sex­u­al­i­ty.  

The Jan­u­ary exec­u­tive order was aimed at elim­i­nat­ing fed­er­al funds for schools that “indoc­tri­nate” stu­dents based on the “pro­mo­tion of gen­der ide­ol­o­gy” and “anti-Amer­i­can ide­olo­gies.” The order accused schools of push­ing trans­gen­der lifestyles and steer­ing stu­dents toward “sur­gi­cal and chem­i­cal muti­la­tion with­out parental con­sent or involve­ment.” 

In Feb­ru­ary, the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion said DEI pro­grams could be con­sid­ered dis­crim­i­na­tion and schools could face fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tions.  

“Edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions have tox­i­cal­ly indoc­tri­nat­ed stu­dents with the false premise that the Unit­ed States is built upon ‘sys­temic and struc­tur­al racism’ and advanced dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies and prac­tices,” the Feb. 14 memo from the Office for Civ­il Rights stat­ed. It said “false” teach­ings of racism and oth­er dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices are dis­guised under the premise of DEI, “smug­gling racial stereo­types and explic­it race-con­scious­ness into every­day train­ing, pro­gram­ming, and dis­ci­pline.”  

In an April memo, the fed­er­al Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion asked state edu­ca­tion agen­cies to con­firm they were not using “ille­gal DEI prac­tices” and warn­ing those that did were at risk of los­ing fed­er­al dol­lars.  

Still, there has been lit­tle clar­i­ty from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion about what pro­grams they would con­sid­er ille­gal.  

“The idea that schools are ‘indoc­tri­nat­ing’ stu­dents is sim­ply not true,” Daly said. “Our teach­ers are teach­ing kids how to think, not what to think. DEI work is about ensur­ing every stu­dent feels seen, val­ued, and sup­port­ed — not push­ing any polit­i­cal agen­da.”  

In an April 15 let­ter to the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, the Con­necti­cut State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion ver­i­fied that the state “already does and will con­tin­ue to com­ply with the Title VI of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964.” In doing so, it also ques­tioned the legal­i­ty of the Trump administration’s threats. 

“The CSDE is unaware of any fed­er­al or state statutes pro­hibit­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion,” the agency wrote.  

Threats to sex­u­al edu­ca­tion pro­grams  

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has also tar­get­ed repro­duc­tive and sex­u­al edu­ca­tion pro­grams for teens, seek­ing to shape ide­ol­o­gy around trans­gen­der issues. In Sep­tem­ber, Tong and 16 oth­er state attor­neys gen­er­al sued the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices to pre­vent the admin­is­trat­ing from pulling fund­ing for pro­grams unless “gen­der iden­ti­ty lan­guage” was removed.  

Since 2010, Con­necti­cut has received about $1.6 mil­lion annu­al­ly for the fed­er­al Per­son­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram, from the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices. The pro­gram is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing med­ical­ly accu­rate edu­ca­tion for youth across the coun­try to com­bat the spread of sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases and teen preg­nan­cy.  

Tong said that for the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, “med­ical­ly accu­rate” means MAGA-approved.  

“Cen­sor­ship and polit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da will not pro­tect teens from unplanned preg­nan­cy or pre­ventable dis­ease,” he said in a press release. “Teens deserve accu­rate, hon­est infor­ma­tion to stay safe, and we’re suing to make sure they get it.”  

The PREP pro­gram is not run­ning this year because the pro­gram con­tracts expired  in Sep­tem­ber 2024 that have not been renewed by Con­gress, but the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office said it has aid­ed an “annu­al aver­age of 800–12,00 at-risk youth in Con­necti­cut.” 

Admin­is­tra­tion push­es ‘patri­ot­ic’ edu­ca­tion   

On top of threats to fed­er­al fund­ing and the push to change DEI pro­grams, there have also been attempts by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to influ­ence school cur­ricu­lum to pro­mote a par­ti­san view of his­to­ry and civics.  

In Sep­tem­ber, the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion col­lab­o­rat­ed with over 40 con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions to cre­ate the Amer­i­ca 250 Civics Edu­ca­tion Coali­tion intend­ed to “reignite the fires of patri­o­tism, strength­en civic lit­er­a­cy, and inspire Amer­i­cans of all ages to under­stand and cher­ish our found­ing prin­ci­ples,” accord­ing to its web­site. The coali­tion is also plan­ning a cel­e­bra­tion for the 250th anniver­sary of the U.S. in July 2026.  

The coali­tion, which includes high­ly par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tions such as Turn­ing Point USA, the Her­itage Foun­da­tion and the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute, is an attempt by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to com­bat what the admin­is­tra­tion has called left­ist indoc­tri­na­tion in the way the his­to­ry of race is taught in schools.  

While the pro­gram­ming and logis­tics of the coali­tion are still unclear, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is pro­hib­it­ed by law from pur­su­ing “any direc­tion, super­vi­sion, or con­trol” over “cur­ricu­lum or pro­gram instruc­tion” in schools, accord­ing to fed­er­al law.  

The Amer­i­ca 250 Civics Edu­ca­tion Coali­tion fur­thers efforts made in Trump’s first term to pur­sue what the pres­i­dent calls “patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion.” In 2020, Trump cre­at­ed the 1776 Com­mis­sion, an ini­tia­tive born in response to the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which re-exam­ined Amer­i­can his­to­ry around slav­ery and its con­se­quences.  

“The left has warped, dis­tort­ed, and defiled the Amer­i­can sto­ry with decep­tions, false­hoods, and lies,” Trump said in a 2020 White House Con­fer­ence on Amer­i­can His­to­ry.  

“Crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, the 1619 Project, and the cru­sade against Amer­i­can his­to­ry is tox­ic pro­pa­gan­da, ide­o­log­i­cal poi­son that, if not removed, will dis­solve the civic bonds that tie us togeth­er,” he said. “It will destroy our coun­try.”   

The new civics coali­tion, spear­head­ed by the Amer­i­can First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute and U.S. Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion and Con­necti­cut native Lin­da McMa­hon, will be releas­ing a “robust pro­gram­ming agen­da” in 2026 that will include “50-state speak­ing tour on col­lege cam­pus­es nation­wide,” accord­ing to a press release.   

Turn­ing Point USA, pre­vi­ous­ly led by Char­lie Kirk who was assas­si­nat­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2025, is known for its con­fronta­tion­al col­lege tours and is slat­ed to lead the pro­gram.  

Hutz H. Hertzberg, chief edu­ca­tion offi­cer of Turn­ing Point Education/USA, said the group “is more resolved than ever to advance God-cen­tered, vir­tu­ous edu­ca­tion for stu­dents flour­ish­ing across our nation.”  

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has said its actions are nec­es­sary to stop schools from teach­ing “anti-Amer­i­can, sub­ver­sive, harm­ful, and false ide­olo­gies.” Trump has even said that teach­ing crit­i­cal race the­o­ry “is a form of child abuse.” 

Some edu­ca­tors, on the oth­er hand, said they think the Trump administration’s plan is part of an author­i­tar­i­an attempt to exert con­trol over the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem for polit­i­cal gain.  

Edu­ca­tion is “very easy for peo­ple to exploit,” Mor­ton said. It is an “easy access point for any­body who wants to pur­sue an ide­o­log­i­cal agen­da.”  

Immi­gra­tion fear is pal­pa­ble 

The fear of immi­gra­tion enforce­ment with­in schools has also impact­ed the aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment, espe­cial­ly after the detain­ment of two high school stu­dents in Con­necti­cut.  

In June, a Meri­den teenag­er was detained by ICE just days before grad­u­at­ing from Mal­oney High School. A few weeks lat­er in July, a New Haven high school stu­dent was detained while work­ing at his job at a car wash in Southing­ton. Both teenagers have since been released, but as a result, edu­ca­tors say the fear is real and raw.  

While there were not any reports in 2025 of ICE offi­cials on school prop­er­ty in Con­necti­cut, state offi­cials released guid­ance to K‑12 pub­lic schools in late Jan­u­ary 2025 regard­ing immi­gra­tion activ­i­ties, includ­ing pro­to­cols should offi­cials show up on school prop­er­ty. While each district’s pro­ce­dures are dif­fer­ent, sug­gest­ed pro­to­cols include request­ing immi­gra­tion agent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and review­ing any war­rant pro­duced by the agents.  

The guid­ance about pro­to­cols fol­lowed a key change that expand­ed where ICE could detain immi­grants. Mere hours into his pres­i­den­cy, Trump reversed for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s immi­gra­tion enforce­ment guide­lines that pre­vent­ed arrests at places deemed to be “sen­si­tive loca­tions,” such as schools, hos­pi­tals, places of wor­ship, shel­ters, health­care facil­i­ties, protests and ral­lies.  

Edu­ca­tors said this had caused fear of raids in class­rooms.   

“The fear is real. It is real for my fam­i­lies. It is real for my stu­dents,” New Haven Pub­lic Schools Super­in­ten­dent Made­line Negron said. 

Negron said her dis­trict is very clear about their core val­ues and the belief that every child deserves access to pub­lic edu­ca­tion. “That is not going to change,” she said.   

The dis­trict is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing stu­dents, fam­i­lies and school offi­cials under­stand dis­trict pro­to­cols regard­ing immi­gra­tion, includ­ing train­ing for school secu­ri­ty guards, school clerks and teach­ers. In a Jan. 28 let­ter to her dis­trict, Negron said all ICE and non-local law enforce­ment offi­cers are required to have a prop­er war­rant or sub­poe­na to access school facil­i­ties, stu­dents and records. If the offi­cers fail to pro­duce the prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion, they will not be allowed in the schools. 

“We don’t ask ques­tions,” she said. “We just serve every kid that comes through our door.”  

Alyssa Dunn, the direc­tor of teacher edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut School of Edu­ca­tion, said some of the administration’s actions, includ­ing cuts to spe­cial edu­ca­tion fund­ing and threats of immi­gra­tion enforce­ment in schools, are under­min­ing the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of pub­lic edu­ca­tion. 

“In the­o­ry, pub­lic schools are meant to pre­pare stu­dents to be pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens in our democ­ra­cy,” she said. “That means that you should be able to attend school, no mat­ter what your abil­i­ty is, no mat­ter what your address is, your zip code, your cit­i­zen­ship sta­tus. But late­ly, poli­cies are seek­ing to alter or hin­der stu­dents’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in free pub­lic edu­ca­tion.”