Connecticut’s teachers unions are pressing Gov. Ned Lamont to reject a federal education tax credit on the grounds that it threatens public schools. There is a problem with that argument: Opting out would not direct a single additional dollar to Connecticut classrooms. It would simply ensure that students in other states have access to scholarships that Connecticut students do not.
Connecticut Education Association (CEA) President Kate Dias and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Connecticut President Jan Hochadel have joined dozens of union leaders urging Democratic governors to reject the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit. Their argument is familiar: The program drains public schools, benefits wealthy families, subsidizes discrimination and advances a campaign to dismantle public education.
Beginning in 2027, individuals may claim a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for qualifying contributions to approved scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations provide scholarships for eligible K-12 education expenses. Twenty-eight states have already elected to participate, including New Hampshire, Virginia and Colorado. The IRS limits the credit to donations made to approved organizations located in participating states.
Only organizations in participating states can receive donations that qualify for the federal credit. If Connecticut stays out, no organization here can use the program to raise scholarship money for Connecticut students.
If Lamont follows the unions’ demand, public schools in Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven will not receive a penny more. Connecticut students will simply lose access to scholarships available to students in participating states, an outcome that makes particularly little sense for a state that already sends Washington more in federal taxes than it receives back in federal spending.
The CEA portrays the program almost entirely as a subsidy for private-school tuition. That framing omits much of what the scholarships can actually cover: tutoring, classroom supplies, services for students with disabilities, career-training equipment, uniforms and other qualified education expenses. A family could use a scholarship to obtain specialized tutoring for a child struggling in a public school. A student with a disability could receive additional support. A teenager in a career program could get help purchasing required equipment.
The program also carries eligibility and accountability requirements the unions largely ignore. Scholarship organizations must be tax-exempt nonprofits, maintain qualifying contributions in separate accounts, spend at least 90 percent of their income on scholarships and serve at least ten students attending more than one school. Eligible students must come from households earning no more than 300 percent of the area median gross income, and donors cannot reserve their contributions for a specific child.
Connecticut officials concerned about fraud or favoritism can impose additional reporting and financial controls. That is what oversight is for, not a reason to exclude Connecticut students while other states move forward.
Dias argued that the tax credit would mainly benefit wealthy donors, claiming most families do not have $1,700 available to contribute. That misreads how the program works. The donor receives the tax credit; the student receives the scholarship. A family seeking assistance does not contribute $1,700; a donor gives to an approved nonprofit, claims the federal credit and helps fund scholarships for eligible students. A family that cannot afford tutoring does not need $1,700 in a checking account. It needs access to a scholarship organization funded by someone who does.
Refusing to participate would not eliminate the federal credit. It would prevent Connecticut organizations from receiving qualifying contributions and awarding scholarships to students here.
The open letter signed by Dias and Hochadel makes its purpose reasonably clear. It appeals explicitly to Democratic Party commitments, invokes Project 2025 and frames Democratic governors as a “firewall” against the program. This is not a careful examination of whether Connecticut students could benefit. It is organized labor telling Democratic governors to fall in line.
AFT Connecticut has gone further, launching an action alert urging teachers, school employees and activists to pressure Lamont directly. The campaign warns that participation would siphon money from public schools and threaten Connecticut’s recent increases in local education aid. It never identifies a single Connecticut education dollar that would disappear. The federal credit does not reduce the state education appropriation, municipal school budgets or existing state education grants.
The unions are asking Lamont to make a symbolic gesture in a national political fight, one that earns applause from organized labor but produces no measurable benefit for Connecticut’s public schools. The practical cost would fall on Connecticut families denied access to assistance that could have been made available here.
Connecticut taxpayers will remain part of the federal tax system regardless of what Lamont decides. Refusing to participate will not insulate the state from the program. It will only prevent organizations here from receiving qualifying contributions and distributing scholarships to students here.
Lamont should approve Connecticut’s participation, impose rigorous transparency requirements and establish strong financial safeguards. The unions describe participation as a threat to public education. But opting out would not strengthen a single Connecticut classroom. It simply ensures that the students who could have benefited are the ones who go without.
