NYC: There IS a Better Way to Support Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2022 //
8

The effects of the pandemic show themselves in every survey of post-pandemic behavior, among students and adults. The pandemic isn’t over but the isolation and anxiety it produced had long-lasting effects.

Dorothy Siegel, Elise Cappella and Kristie Patten describe what they call “a better way” to help students with disabilities.

On December 1, 2022, New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks announced a path forward for transforming and rebuilding trust in the city’s programs serving students with disabilities. This plan includes the sustaining and scaling of four successful and innovative programs serving students with disabilities across the city, the creation of a new paid internship program for high school students in Occupational, Physical and Speech Therapy for students with IEPs, as well as the empowerment of families and community through a new advisory council that will make bold recommendations on reimagining special education in the New York City Public Schools.

This announcement demonstrates the city’s commitment to address the systemic and historic marginalization of students with IEPs, a marginalization that has disproportionately impacted the city’s Black and Brown students with IEPs.

A recent Chalkbeat article, “Public schools are NYC’s main youth mental health system. Where kids land often depends on what their parents can pay,” exposed to public view the growing number of New York City students with serious mental healthissues and behavioral problems that get in the way of their education. Because New York State has inadequately funded mental health services, the onus falls on local school districts, which don’t have the option to turn students away. “The entire state of New York has shifted the burden of mental health to the school districts,” said a social worker quoted in the article.

Under federal law, school districts must provide all students with disabilities, including those with mental health and behavioral problems, a “free and appropriate public education.” And many such students in New York City do receive a high-quality education with therapeutic supports in the public schools.

But serious inequities abound. As Chalkbeat noted, in the New York City public schools,

“Black boys get classified with emotional disabilities at a far higher rate than other kids. In the 2020-2021 school year . . . Black students made up less than a quarter of students overall, yet they accounted for nearly half of students classified as having an emotional disability. White students, who made up 15% of all students in New York City public schools, accounted for just 8% of emotional disability classifications.”

As we can see, Black students, especially boys, are overwhelmingly overrepresented in the emotional disability classification. This matters because students with this classification have much worse outcomes than other students. As per Chalkbeat, in 2020-21 only 12% of students classified with an emotional disability received a Regents diploma in four years, compared to 73% of all New York City students.

For decades, New York City students who are classified with an emotional disability have found themselves on a path to highly segregated classrooms and schools, and, ultimately, limited life options. Neighborhood schools are not able to meet the needs of such challenging students, especially in inclusive settings. A recent report by NYU Research Alliance for NYC Schoolsstated that in 2016-17 only 33% of students with an emotional disability were served in an inclusive setting, compared to 66% of students with all disabilities. These young people often drop out and may fall into the juvenile justice system.

In the past few years, an increasing number of students with mental health and behavioral problems, no doubt exacerbated by two years of Covid, are showing up at the schoolhouse door. Of these, some find their way to private schools whose tuitions arepaid by the public school system – close to $1 billion in the last school year alone for students with autism, learning disabilities or mental health/behavioral issues.

Predictably, the overwhelming majority of these private school students are White and hail from more advantaged backgrounds. According to the Chalkbeat analysis, most students who are able to attend private schools on the public dime “live in just four of the richest and whitest districts,” including the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side of Manhattan and Park Slope in Brooklyn. As noted above, racially disparate classification is onemajor inequity in the system. But another is family wealth.

Clearly, New York State can and must do more, especially the restoration and rebuilding of mental health services for children and adolescents with mental health and behavioral issues.

But there is much that the New York City public school system can do as well, in particular at the beginning of a child’s educational journey. Students at risk of being classified with an emotional disability can and should be diverted from that drop-out/juvenile justice path onto a much better life path, as early as possible.

There IS a better way: The Path Program.

The New York City Department of Education (DOE), in close collaboration with researchers at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development (NYU), have developed a better way to educate these students: the Path program, which is based on the highly successful ASD Nest Program for autistic students. Path, like Nest, is a comprehensive, cohesive, collaborative, fully inclusive program that serves students at risk of an emotional disability (ED) classification. Path redirects these students onto a more hopeful path.

ASD Nest Program

The ASD Nest Program has developed over the past twenty years as a collaboration between the DoE and NYU. Launched in 2003, the DoE’s ASD Nest Program works with autisticstudents who are capable of doing grade-level academic work. The goal is to help these students develop competence in their academic, social and behavioral functioning, in order to realize their full, unique potential as independent and fulfilled adults.

In the 2022-23 school year, 69 New York City public schools are educating approximately 1,700 ASD students in 350+ integrated co-taught K-12 classrooms. The vast majority of Nest students stay in the program through twelfth grade, where 95% of Nest high schoolers graduate with a Regents diploma.

Path Program:

The Path program promotes the inclusion of students with emotional disabilities within community schools and strives to disrupt the historical segregation of Black and brown children in restrictive special education settings. The program employs many of the same evidence-based principles, practices, and structures developed for the Nest program, with the addition ofevidence-based trauma-informed and social-emotional learning strategies known to work well for students with this classification. Path classes are small co-taught integrated classes, with no more than four students classified with ED in each class, alongside twelve to twenty typically developing peers. Teachers provide the general education curriculum, using specialized supports and a variety of co-teaching models. With related services integrated into the day, Path classrooms incorporate supports typically provided by outside therapists to foster a safe environment in which Path students can comfortably interact with peers. Whole-class social, sensory, behavioral and academic strategies form a foundational level of support, consistent across all settings.

All school staff – teachers, therapists and administrators — receive high-quality pre- and in-service training and on-site support. Path staff meet weekly as a team to create comprehensive support plans for each student, which involve classroom and individual supports and family partnership.

The DoE piloted the model in one District 9 school in 2021-22 with a grant through the Fund for Public Schools. In 2022-23, the DoE opened four Path classrooms in three District 9 neighborhood schools: three kindergartens and one first grade class. Three more kindergarten classes will open this year in three other districts in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, with the goal to eventually have Path programs in most NYC neighborhoods.

Path and Nest are two examples of the DoE’s “specialized programs,” differentiated program models for different disability categories. So far, the DoE has created specialized programs for students with autism (Nest and Horizon), emotional disabilities (Path), and intellectual disabilities (ACES). Importantly, all specialized programs – and their students — are fully integrated into their neighborhood school communities.

Over time, the ASD Nest Program has proven to be the program of choice for many, if not most, parents of autistic students, even those with the means to go to private school. The main admission requirement for Nest is an autism classification.

Similarly, Path is intended to level the playing field for Black and Brown students at risk of an emotional disability who don’t come from advantaged backgrounds. It is commendable that the DOE has chosen to invest in this research-based model – in some of the poorest community school districts in the city – to create inclusive pathways to school and life success.

With the chancellor’s commitment to the expansion of the ASD Nest and Path programs, the future looks much brighter for New York City’s students with significant disabilities.

Dorothy Siegel, Co-founder, ASD Nest Program

Elise Cappella, Professor of Applied Psychology, PI of NYU Path Program, NYU Steinhardt School

Kristie Patten, Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy,PI of NYU ASD Nest Support Project, Co-Investigator of NYU Path Program, NYU Steinhardt School

Categories Education Reform, New York City, Special Education

Ed Johnson: Atlanta Schoools Could Be the Linchpin for Reducing Crime and Violence

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2022 //
4

Ed Johnson is an Atlantan who acts as a watchdog for the Atlanta Public Schools. He is also a systems thinker, influenced by the seminal work of W. Edwards Deming.

He recently wrote about how the Atlanta pPublic Schools could help revitalize the city by thinking systematically instead of following its course of jumping from reform to reform.

His post begins:

Loopy APS is my mental model of interrelated causal factors exposed for all to see, question, and critique in a spirit of collaborative discourse. It began as a visual representation of my thinking about why Atlanta Public Schools cannot improve and why it can improve dumped out onto paper, static. The 2009 APS cheating scandal prompted doing so.

Then, during April 2017, by chance I discovered the cleverly named Loopy™ and promptly rendered my mental model in it. Hence the name Loopy APS.

Created by systems thinker Nicky Case, Loopy™ is “a tool for thinking in systems” and for simulating systems. It is highly effective and simple but not simplistic to use. If you can think, you can use Loopy™. It is freely available.

Loopy APS allowed seeing the dynamic behavior of a vicious causal loop that went unnoticed on paper. The vicious causal loop simulates interrelated factors influencing violence and crime in Atlanta to continually worsen amid a great deal of systemic instability.

It wasn’t clear at first why the vicious causal loop was in Loopy APS, as I did not knowingly model it. It was only after being able to see my thinking play out dynamically in Loopy APS did I notice it. So, to find out why, I ran Loopy APS, time and again, observing its behavior until a particular story became clear.

Reading from the snapshot image, in Figure 1, below, the story, told tersely, goes like this:

Greatly influenced by Partner Purposes, Atlanta BoE (Board of Education) and APS Superintendency provide for frustrating Authentic Education by employing SEL & Police (behavioristic practices) to favor inculcating routinized Teacher Learning and Student Leaning that obviate Wisdom, so as to obscure Democracy to allow Selfishness to flourish as Violence & Crimeto entangle Civil Society, while Atlanta BoE (Board of Education) and APS Superintendency are ever more greatly influenced by Partner Purposes.

Note the end of the story goes right back to its beginning. This makes the story a closed loop. Being a closed loop means every “thing” in the loop represents a causal factor that influences the behavior of every other “thing” or casual factor in the loop, including itself.

In other words, influence that goes around, comes around, whether directly or indirectly. Or, as Martin Luther King Jr tried to help us know and understand: “What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Systems thinker Nick Chase did this short video honoring systems thinker Martin Luther King Jr. But, alas, I guess it takes one to know one, because being a systems thinker is not ordinarily ascribed to Dr. King. To many, he remains the guy who had a dream.

The overall, systemic behavior of a causal loop may be vicious or virtuous, or status quo-keeping. In the story above, pulled from Figure 1, it is vicious systemic behavior influencing violence and crime in Atlanta to continually worsen.

Now, given that story, the question becomes: What needs to change, so as to transform the closed loop of causal factors influencing violence and crime in Atlanta to continually worsen into one influencing violence and crime in Atlanta to continually lessen?

This question, of course, comes from recognizing that every vicious cycle holds the potential to reverse and become virtuous and, conversely, every virtuous cycle holds the potential to reverse and become vicious.

To follow Ed Johnson’s analysis, open the link and view his graphs and finish reading.

Categories Atlanta, Education Reform, Georgia

U.S. Senate Rejects GOP Effort to Overturn Biden Administration Charter Regulations

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2022 //
10

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina offered a resolution to overturn the Biden administration’s new regulations on federal funding of charter schools. The vote was 49-49, strictly on party lines. Even charter school supporters like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado voted to sustain the new rules.

Every Republican voted to reject the rules. The charter lobby was not at all pleased.

The Network for Public Education has worked very hard to persuade the Department of Education and Congress to regulate the federal Charter Schools Program. When Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education, there was no chance that the Department would try to regulate the $440 million handed out to new charter schools every year. The federal government was the single biggest contributor to new charter schools.

NPE published reports about the large number of charter schools that closed or never opened. It wrote about for-profit charters that were enjoying federal largesse. It drew attention to charter school scandals, including white flight academies subsidized by federal funds.

Not until the Biden administration took office did anyone in the Department take seriously its responsibility to oversee federal funding of charters.

What do the new regulations require? What did every single Republican Senator try to block? We’re they upset about the limits on for-profit operators? Or did they object to transparency and accountability for federally funded charters?

NPE executive director Carol Burris explained in this article published at Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog:

For those who have long advocated for overhauling the CSP program, here are the significant gains.

Schools managed by for-profits will have a difficult time securing CSP grants and, in some cases, will be excluded from funding.

If an applicant has or will have a contract with a for-profit management company (or a “nonprofit management organization operated by or on behalf of a for-profit entity”), they must provide extensive information, including a copy or description of the contract, comprehensive leadership personnel reporting and the identification of possible related party transactions. Real estate contracts must be reported, and “evergreen contracts” in which there is automatic contract renewal are prohibited.

The school cannot share legal, accounting or auditing services with the for-profit. The state entity that awards the grant must publish the for-profit management contract between the awardee and the school.
The final regulations also include the reporting and exposure of the for-profit’s related entities. The Network for Public Education recommended the addition of “related entities” in its comments to the department. Our report, “Chartered for Profit,” explains how for-profit owners create separate corporations with different names to mask the complete control of the for-profit over operations of the school.

Finally, the applicant must assure that “the [for-profit] management company does not exercise full or substantial control over the charter school,” thereby barring any charter school operated by a for-profit with a “sweeps contract” from obtaining CSP funds.

There will be greater transparency and accountability for charter schools, State Entities, and CMOs that apply for grants.

This is probably the most underreported win for those who support charter school reform.

Transparency gains include:

• An assurance that the grantee holds a public hearing on the proposed or expanded charter school. These hearings must be well advertised and include information on how the school will increase diversity and not promote segregation. Schools are obligated to reach out to the community to encourage attendance and then provide a summary of the hearing as part of the application. These public hearings are required of direct grantees and subgrantees — both SE and CMO.
• The publication of for-profit management contracts.
• The publication of the names of awardee schools and their peer-reviewed applications by states and CMOs.
• A requirement that the school publish information for prospective parents, including fees, uniform requirements, disciplinary practices, transportation plans, and whether the school participates in the national free or reduced-price lunch program.

Accountability gains include:

• More substantial supervision by state entities of the schools that are awarded grants, including in-depth descriptions of how they will review applications, the peer review process they will use, and how they will select grantees for in-depth monitoring.
• Restrictions regarding the spending of grants by unauthorized schools. Charter schools not yet approved by an authorizer will be eligible to use planning grant funds; however, they cannot dip into any implementation funds until they are approved and have secured a facility. This new regulation will limit, though not prevent, all funding that goes to charter schools that never open.

Regulations to stop White-flight charters from receiving CSP funding and ensure the charter is needed in the community.

The final regulations are good, but not as strong as initially proposed.
One of the more controversial aspects of the new regulations was the need for the school to conduct a community impact analysis. The charter lobby focused on one example by which a school could show need (district over-enrollment) and used it as a rallying cry to garner opposition to the regulations. In the new regulations, the department clarifies that there are other ways to demonstrate need, including wait lists and offering a unique program. It also eliminated the need for the applicant to provide a district enrollment projection.

The community impact analysis is now called a needs analysis. That analysis must include evidence of community desire for the school; documentation of the school’s enrollment projection and how it was derived; a comparison of the demographics of the school with the area where the students are likely to be drawn; the projected impact of the school on racial and socio-economic district diversity; and an assurance that the school would not “hamper, delay or negatively affect” district desegregation efforts. Applicants would also have to submit their plan to ensure that the charter school does not increase racial segregation and isolation in the school district from which the charter would draw its students.

The department went to great pains to reassure applicants that schools in racially isolated districts would not need to show diversity (this straw man argument had been used by the charter lobby and even some editorial boards to fight the regulations, although the original rules had made that clear). Those schools that are unlikely to be diverse due to the school’s special mission would also have to submit an explanation.
Still, there are some concerns about unintended consequences of the regulations.

With the additional caveat regarding “special mission,” the department is trying to preserve grants to schools that are themed to promote, for example, Native American culture in an area where Native American students are a minority population in the district. That is understandable.
However, White-flight charter schools could skirt the regulation by arguing that their mission is to provide a Eurocentric, classical curriculum.

For example, charter schools opened by Hillsdale College — a small Christian college in Michigan that promotes a “classical” curriculum — are disproportionately White. These schools could claim that their mission appeals to students with European backgrounds and that the strong “anti-CRT” message in their “1776 curriculum” does not appeal to Black families. Although Hillsdale College does not take federal funds, Hillsdale charter schools do. We have identified nearly $7 million awarded to Hillsdale member charter schools up to April 2021. Newer schools have likely secured CSP grants as well.

Priority 2 — which encouraged charter/public school cooperation — was retained but categorized as “invitational” for the 2022 cycle.
The second straw man argument the National Alliance for Public Charters used to fuel their #backoff campaign on the regulations was the claim that charter/public school district cooperative projects were required. They were not. They were a priority, and priorities can be mandated, competitive (assigned a few points), or invitational (looked up favorably but no point value).

As I explained here, it is rare for a priority to be mandated. For example, of the six priorities for the 2022 State Entities grants, only one is required, which is that authorizers use best practices. The department now makes it clear that it is unlikely that charter/district cooperative activity will ever be a mandated priority while leaving the door open to it becoming a competitive priority after the 2022 award cycle.

All regulations, priorities and assurances go into effect for this 2022 grant cycle with one exception: Developer grant applicants, a small program in which individual schools apply, do not have to submit a needs analysis in 2022 only. That is because applications are due shortly.

Summary

Since 2019 when the Network for Public Education issued its reports on the federal Charter School Program, the program has come under increased congressional scrutiny. We have followed up by submitting letters to the department, often co-signed by other groups, demanding reform and exposing abuses of the program.

These new regulations are an essential first step in making sure that fewer tax dollars go to schools that never open, schools that quickly close, and for-profit operators. Unscrupulous individuals who used the program for their enrichment will find it more difficult to do so. State Entities that have pushed money out the door will now be forced to provide more oversight and supervision. And so they should. State Entities get 10 percent of every grant, representing millions of federal dollars, to use for such supervision.

We do not doubt that some applicants will still provide false information, as we found time and time again, but now as all peer-reviewed applications go online, groups such as ours will serve as watchdogs and report falsehoods and misrepresentations to the Office of the Inspector General.

And for all of the charter schools that are fronts for for-profit organizations, the Education Department just put a big sign on the door that says “you need not apply.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, For-Profit, Republicans

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s Major Announcement

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2022 //
33

Heather Cox Richardson has a very funny post about Trump’s big surprise announcement and the reactions to it. you have to open the link and scroll to the bottom to see her choice selection of tweets. One came from an insurrectionist who said, “And I’m going to jail for this?”

Yesterday, former president Trump took to his Truth Social media platform to announce that he would be making “a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” today. Since he recently threw his hat in the ring for president in 2024, there was a great deal of speculation about what political move this would be.

When it came today, it turned out that his announcement was for digital trading cards with images of him as a superhero…available for $99 apiece. Radio personality John Melendez promptly called them “Broke’mon cards.”

Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and Republican who now monitors right-wing extremism, tweeted: “All I can say is that those of us who have lost friends, fought with relatives, resigned positions, been called traitor, left our party, all because we saw very clearly what a con-man, huckster and fraud this man is, have never felt more vindicated.”

The reduction of the former president to a cartoon grifter seems likely to have political repercussions. Right-wing media personality Baked Alaska, who is facing six months in jail after pleading guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol building for his participation in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, tweeted: “i can’t believe i’m going to jail for an nft salesman,” with a sad face emoji.

You gotta read the rest.

Categories Biden, Elections, Humor, Trump

Great News! Kentucky Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Vouchers!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2022 //
6

The Kentucky legislature enacted a voucher law limited to urban districts. Rural districts did not want vouchers.

Today that law was rejected by the state’s highest court.

First, the law was limited to only a few districts.

But most important:

The circuit court also held that the EOA Act violates Section 184 of the Kentucky Constitution which provides that “no sum shall be raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters.” Applying the plain language of this section, the income tax credit raises money for nonpublic education and its characterization as a tax credit rather than an appropriation is immaterial. The circuit court cited Commonwealth v. O’Harrah, 262 S.W.2d 385, 389 (Ky. 1953), for the long-standing principle that “[i]n appraising the validity of the statute we must look through the form of the statute to the substance of what it does.” Every dollar raised under the EOA program to fund the AGOs is raised by tax credits which diminish the tax revenue received to defray the necessary expenses of government…

Finally, the circuit court concluded that the factual record necessary to consideration of the constitutional issues raised by Sections 3 and 171 of the Kentucky Constitution was not yet developed. Sections 3 and 171 prohibit payment of public money “to any man or set of men, except in consideration of public services,” and require principles of public purpose, uniformity, and equality in levying taxes. Likewise, the court deemed the record is underdeveloped on the issues pertaining to Sections 183 and 186 of the Kentucky Constitution, which require the Kentucky General Assembly to provide for “an efficient system of common schools” that is adequately and equitably funded, and that “[a]ll funds accruing to the school fund shall be used for the maintenance of the public schools of the Commonwealth, and for no other purpose.” Because the record contains no discovery, depositions, or expert testimony to establish whether the EOA Act is consistent with these constitutional requirements, the court denied summary judgment on these issues.

Categories Democracy, Education Industry, Kentucky, Vouchers

Campaign Ads I Never Want to See Again

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2022 //
37

During the election campaign, I gave money to candidates in races across the country. Every time I made a donation, my email was passed along to other candidates, who passed it on to other candidates.

Every day, I had 10-15 apppeals for money, sometimes more. I learned to press the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the email or to write STOP on text messages. But other candidates quickly sent new appeals.

Here are the kind of apppeals I hope never to see again:

“It’s all over.” Please send money.”

“We are falling far behind.” Please send money.”

“It’s hopeless. Please send money.”

“I’m a sure loser. Please send money.”

A notice to all candidates: I never contribute to sure losers. An appeal based on pessimism and despair is a complete turnoff.

Please send future messages based on hope and optimism. If you tell me your campaign has already lost, I will not send a penny and I will block all future emails from you.

Categories Elections

Texas: The Link Between the Charter School Lobby and Fossil Fuel Industry

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2022 //
7

The Texas Public Policy Foundation was established in 1989 by wealthy Texans to promote charter schools. The charter lobby in Texas has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in writing laws that favor the expansion of charter chains and shield them from accountability. Although it still pushes charter schools, the TPPF has turned its attention to fighting anything that threatens the dominance of the fossil fuel industry. The New York Times published a major exposé of the organization, its goals, and its funders: the oil and gas industry

When a lawsuit was filed to block the nation’s first major offshore wind farm off the Massachusetts coast, it appeared to be a straightforward clash between those who earn their living from the sea and others who would install turbines and underwater cables that could interfere with the harvesting of squid, fluke and other fish.

The fishing companies challenging federal permits for the Vineyard Wind project were from the Bay State as well as Rhode Island and New York, and a video made by the opponents featured a bearded fisherman with a distinct New England accent.

But the financial muscle behind the fight originated thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean, in dusty oil country. The group bankrolling the lawsuit filed last year was the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based nonprofit organization backed by oil and gas companies and Republican donors.

With influence campaigns, legal action and model legislation, the group is promoting fossil fuels and trying to stall the American economy’s transition toward renewable energy. It is upfront about its opposition to Vineyard Wind and other renewable energy projects, making no apologies for its advocacy work….

In Arizona, the Texas Public Policy Foundation campaigned to keep open one of the biggest coal-fired power plants in the West. In Colorado, it called for looser restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. And in Texas, the group crafted the first so-called “energy boycott” law to punish financial institutions that want to scale back their investments in fossil fuel projects, legislation adopted by four other states.

At the same time, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has spread misinformation about climate science. With YouTube videos, regular appearances on Fox and Friends, and social media campaigns, the group’s executives have sought to convince lawmakers and the public that a transition away from oil, gas and coal would harm Americans.

They have frequently seized on current events to promote dubious narratives, pinning high gasoline prices on President Biden’s climate policies (economists say that’s not the driver) or claiming the 2021 winter blackout in Texas was the result of unreliable wind energy (it wasn’t).

They travel the nation encouraging state lawmakers to punish companies that try to reduce carbon emissions. And through an initiative called Life:Powered, the group makes what it calls “the moral case for fossil fuels,” which holds that American prosperity is rooted in an economy based on oil, gas and coal and that poor communities and developing nations deserve the same opportunities to grow….

James Leininger, who earned a fortune selling medical beds, founded Texas Public Policy Foundation in 1989 to promote charter schools. As it evolved, the organization embraced other causes including criminal justice, immigration, border security, taxes, and energy.

Mr. Leininger bankrolled Rick Perry’s successful gubernatorial campaign in 2000, and Mr. Perry reciprocated by donating the proceeds of his 2010 book, “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington,” to the group. Other wealthy conservative donors began writing checks, including Tim Dunn, an oilman who is the vice chairman of the board.

Billionaire Tim Dunn is a major supporter of charters and vouchers. He is an evangelical Christian who wants students to have a Christian education. According to CNN, Dunn and his pal, fellow billionaire Farris Wilks, are focused on transforming education: “their ultimate goal is to replace public education with private, Christian schooling.”

When President Donald J. Trump tapped Mr. Perry in 2017 to serve as energy secretary, the group followed him to Washington, opening an office there and placing several senior officials inside the administration.

Mr. Trump nominated Kathleen Hartnett White, a fellow at the foundation, to lead the Council on Environmental Quality. Ms. White, who had once described believing in global warming as “a kind of paganism,” stumbled at a confirmation hearing, and the White House withdrew her nomination.

Susan Combs, another fellow at the group, became acting assistant secretary of fish, wildlife and parks at the Department of the Interior. Brooke Rollins, chief executive of the foundation, went to work at the White House.

Bernard McNamee, a onetime policy adviser to Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, joined the Department of Energy under Mr. Perry, then left for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, only to return to the Trump administration after a few months. Mr. McNamee is now a lawyerwho advises fossil fuel companies.

Douglas W. Domenech, who ran the foundation’s efforts to block the Obama administration from regulating emissions from power plants, became assistant secretary at the interior department. He was later found to have violated federal ethics rules by meeting with foundation officials, creating the appearance that he was working on behalf of a former employer.

As the organization’s profile grew, donations ballooned from $4.7 million in 2010 to $25.6 million in 2021, the most recent year for which records are available. That allowed the group to expand its mandate far beyond the Lone Star state.

The story says that the TPPF is not required to reveal the names of its donors.

But publicly available tax filings show that the group has received money from fossil fuel companies including the coal giant Peabody Energy, Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

The foundation has also received at least $4 million from conservative donors including Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, according to public filings. Koch Industries owns oil refineries, petrochemical plants and thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines, and the brothers have a long history of funding efforts to block climate action.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Environment, Texas

John Merrow: Public Schools Are Under Siege: Do Not Relax

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2022 //
41

John Merrow warns us that the extremists are upping the pressure to undermine public schools and their teachers. Attend local school board meetings. Run for the local school board. Stand up and be counted.

Perhaps you have been giving thanks that the predicted ‘Red Wave’ did not materialize in November’s midterm elections, but the danger isn’t over. Former President Trump has called for suspending the US Constitution, and most Republicans have refused to condemn his outrageous statement. White nationalists, racists, anti-semites, LGBTQ-haters, and the political opportunists and media whores who enable them are still out in force, working as hard as ever to destabilize our nation.

Because of my belief in the importance of public schools, I’m calling out the right-wing political activists who are working to destroy public education– and keep children from reading, thinking, and questioning. More people need to step up and defend public schools, because classrooms are becoming ‘unsafe spaces’ for exploration of anything that’s remotely controversial. That’s the polar opposite of education….and a genuine threat to our democracy.

At the top of my list is “Moms for Liberty” and its co-founder Tiffany Justice. This group is leading an effort to take over school boards in order to restrict the curriculum and fire supposedly ‘woke’ administrators. She told former Trump consigliere Steve Bannon, “We’re going to take over the school boards, but that’s not enough. Once we replace the school boards, what we need to do is we need to have search firms, that are conservative search firms, that help us to find new educational leaders, because parents are going to get in there and they’re going to want to fire everyone.”

In October The New Yorker profiled the organization, a piece well worth your attention.

Blogger Peter Greene, a former high school teacher, cataloged the right-wing campaigns of Moms for Liberty, the 1776 Project, and Patriot Mobile recently in Forbes Magazine. Below is Greene’s description of some of their victories, and the consequences.

Right-wingers took over the “Miami-Dade School Board, where a resolution to recognize LGBTQ History Month (which the district had done just last year) drew a crowd of opponents, including Moms for Liberty, the Christian Family Coalition, and the Proud Boys. The new majority on the board squashed the motion……In Colorado, a superintendent resigned after board members campaigned against his policy priorities. In Florida’s beleaguered Broward County district, a new majority appointed by Governor DeSantis passed a surprise motion to fire the current superintendent…..and in Berkeley County (SC), the new majority, on the same night they were sworn in, fired the superintendent, fired the district legal counsel, cut property taxes, banned “critical race theory,” and set up a committee to begin reviewing and removing books deemed inappropriate. Deon Jackson had served as Berkeley County’s first Black superintendent for just over a year, after long-time employment in the district in other capacities. The board offered no explanation for their action, telling the press only, ‘We expect to be able to share our rationale in the future.’”

Please open the link and keep reading.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Education Industry, Extremism, Privatization, Propaganda

Carol Burris: Why Did GAO Undercount the Number of Federally-Funded Charter Schools That Closed?

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2022 //
78

The U.S. General Accountability Office is a federal agency that reviews federal programs and informs Congress about problems and progress. The GAO is expected to be nonpartisan and highly competent.

But when the GAO was asked to report on the number of federally funded charter schools that closed or never opened, its count fell dramatically short, according to Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education. Burris was lead author of two reports that found that a large percentage of charter schools funded by the federal Charter Schools Program closed within their first five years or never opened at all. Read those reports here and here. Now she finds that the GAO is asleep at the wheel.

Burris wrote to the GAO to ask it to correct its findings. She gave specific examples of charter schools that disappeared, yet were counted by GAO as open. The agency stonewalled.

Why does this matter? The Department of Education issued new regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP), banning for-profit charters from receiving federal funding and requiring greater transparency. The charter lobby has vigorously resisted both demands. This week, friends of the charter lobby will attempt to overturn the new CSP regulations, enabling profiteers to continue to grab federal dollars and incompetent charter managers to do the same.

Carol Burris reported her efforts to correct the GAO report at Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog on the Washington Post.

Valerie Strauss wrote the introduction:

In October, the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled “Charter Schools That Received Federal Funding to Open or Expand Were Generally Less Likely to Close Than Other Similar Charter Schools” in response to a congressional request. The report looked at data about the federal Charter School Program, which over several decades has awarded billions of dollars in grants for the expansion or opening of charters. These schools are publicly funded but privately operated, often with minimal or no oversight from a governmental agency. The GAO said in part:


“The Department of Education awards Charter Schools Program (CSP) grants to help open new charter schools or replicate and expand high-quality charter schools, among other things. While few charter schools closed overall, charter schools that received CSP awards closed at lower rates than similar charter schools that did not receive an award between fiscal years 2006 and 2020. GAO’s analysis found, for example, that within five years after receiving CSP awards, CSP-recipient charters schools were about 1.5 times less likely to close than similar non-CSP charter schools—with an estimated 1.4 percent and 2.3 percent closing, respectively. Within 12 years of receiving CSP grants, the same pattern generally held. The pattern also generally held for CSP-recipient charter schools regardless of the schools’ grade level, locale, student body racial and ethnic composition, or percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch.”


This post, written by Carol Burris, an award-winning former New York high school principal and now executive director of the advocacy group called Network for Public Education, raises questions about the report, saying that the GAO “used outdated charter school status data as the basis of their descriptive analysis.” She explains below how she came to that conclusion.

Burris has written previously on the charter school program on this blog (for example, here and here), and in the following piece she takes issue with some of the GAO’s data and report results. The Network for Public Education is an alliance of organizations that advocates for the improvement of public education and sees charter schools as part of a movement to privatize public education.

The GAO denied that it used outdated data and said it stands by the report. It said that it needs “to use rigorous methodologies that are acceptable to social scientists and statisticians and can withstand scrutiny.” You can see its full response at the end of the piece.

The Department of Education was also asked for a comment and provided a short one that did not directly address the GAO report or Burris’s critique. It said in an email: “Our administration is committed to supporting high-quality public charter schools, as reflected in the president’s budget. And we’re committed to accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility in the federal charter school program, as reflected in our regulations.”

Burris said her data shows significant undercounting by the GAO of charter schools that closed after receiving federal grants from the Charter School Program — either through state governments or from the Education Department. She said she shared her data with the GAO on numerous occasions.After repeated scandals in the charter school sector and negative fiscal impacts on public school districts from charter expansion, the Biden administration this year made changes to the Charter School Program in an effort to stop waste and fraud and bring more transparency to charter school operations.

In September, the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Inspector General released an audit of the nearly 30-year-old federal Charter School Programs that found, among other things, that charter school networks and for-profit charter management organizations did not open anywhere near the number of charters they promised to open with federal funding. Previous investigations by an education advocacy group, the Network for Public Education, which opposes the growth of charter schools, had found similar problems. (You can read my stories about their “Asleep at the Wheel” reports here and here.)


By Carol Burris


Congress last year directed the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the controversial federal Charter Schools Program (CSP), which was the subject of regulatory reform by the Biden administration this year. In a 2021 appropriations bill, the House Committee on Appropriation said:


“The Committee requests GAO to provide a report to the Committees on Appropriations on the Department’s oversight over CSP and whether the program is being implemented effectively among grantees and subgrantees. The report should include an analysis of CSP grant amounts over time that supported charter schools, with a particular focus on schools that eventually closed or received funds but never opened; the relationships between charter schools supported by CSP grants and charter management organizations; and an analysis of enrollment patterns at these schools, especially for students with disabilities. The report should examine ways to improve the Department’s oversight of CSP as well as make recommendations on potential legislative changes to the program that would reduce the potential for mismanagement and ineffective operations.”


The GAO report published in October does not address all of Congress’s mandate to, and, according to my research conducted over several months, severely undercounts the number of closed CSP schools and the federal dollars spent on them. In addition, that error has a ripple effect on findings throughout the report. What follows explains what went wrong, and the facts that back up these conclusions.

GAO’s numbers don’t add up

The published report, which covered only a small part of the congressional investigatory request, examined three programs, which they refer to as (1) the State Educational Agencies/State Entities Awards, (2) the Charter Management Organizations (CMO) Awards, and (3) the Non-State Educational Agencies/Developers (Developers) Awards. The report contains a descriptive analysis of grants to schools that closed or never opened and a comparative probability analysis of grant recipients (new schools only) closing during their first 12 years. The comparative probability analysis, which became the headline for the report, was not part of the congressional request. Its findings are misinterpreted in the headline of the report.

This post, however, focuses on the requested descriptive analysis, which reported the present status (open, closed, future, will not open) of CSP awardee schools and how much was spent on those that never opened or closed. Its source was a data set given to the GAO by the U.S. Department of Education. That data set includes program information, school names, award years and amounts, identifying details, and a status for each grantee school — open, closed, opening in the future, will not open, or undetermined (as indicated by a blank) when their grant is complete.

In 2019, the department published a detailed data set of CSP awards, which you can find on the department’s website here. Most of that data set, specifically awards from 2006 through 2018, is a subset of the data set given to the GAO. The data set provided to the GAO also includes the 2019 and 2020 awards, however, we estimate that upward of 80 percent of the grantee information is in the public data set.

Let’s begin with a few examples of awardee schools and their status in the 2019 data set to understand why the report got it wrong.

Path Academy Charter School in Connecticut was a school that received a grant directly from the department. According to the 2019 data set, it received $585,800 in a three-year grant from 2013 to 2015. The data set reports the school’s status as open, but Path Academy closed in 2018 after the state discovered that the school and its charter management organization, Our Piece of the Pie, defrauded “the state of nearly $1.6 million, billing the state for 128 phantom students, operating unauthorized schools, and tolerating excessive absenteeism.”

Spirit Prep was a proposed “blended” school powered by the for-profit K12 (now Stride) online programs. It received a grant for over $186,000 in 2011 to plan for its opening. Although K12 announced in April of 2012 that Spirit Prep would open that fall, by July, the New Jersey Department of Education decided that the school would not open and denied its charter. In 2019, the department still had it listed as a “future” school with a note that it would open in 2012.

Tallulah Charter School, a Louisiana 2013 grantee, closed in 2017 following a cheating scandal. Its status is listed in the data set as open.


Hope Academy, a 2008-2010 grantee that received more than a half-million dollars, shut down in 2014 and was later sued by the state of Missouri for $3.7 million after “an audit found inflated attendance numbers.” Again, its CSP status was listed as open in 2019.

These are not isolated examples. They are representative of the hundreds of such cases that we found. Why do there appear to be so many errors?


The answer is that once the grant is finished (most end within three or fewer years), the department says it no longer checks to see if they are open. Therefore, the status of the school is frozen in time in the data set. A school open when the grant was complete may be shuttered today. The department requires that state entity, charter management organizations and developer grantees report twice a year on the operational status of all CPS-funded schools — but only for active and open grants.


This also explains why the Department of Education cautiously reports numbers of closed CSP schools using the term “closed prematurely.”


But the GAO did not check on the current status of schools, with the exception of the 189 schools that had no status in the data set. This is explained in Appendix I on pages 22 and 23 and was communicated to me in an email on Oct. 27 from GAO Assistant Director Sherri Doughty.


Recall that the GAO’s congressional mandate was “to report on CSP grants, with a particular focus on charter schools that eventually closed or never opened” (emphasis added). By accepting the department’s status in the majority of cases, it was using data that had not been updated in years, with the exception of 189 of 6,023 awards. Yet in the report, the GAO reports closures as current as of May 2022. Footnote 11 on page 11 says that the GAO defined “open” as currently open schools.

Despite my sending extensive file after file of correct information, their response was, “we stand by our report.”


Now, I will describe what they got wrong.


Extensive under-reporting of CSP awardee closures


For the Network for Public Education’s analysis, we used the public 2019 CSP data set, which is a subset of what the GAO received. The vast majority (exceeding 80 percent) of the CSP awards from 2006 forward are in the data set, which covers 13 of the 15 years examined by the GAO.
Using the procedure outlined below, NPE’s Marla Kilfoyle and I identified the extent to which the GAO underestimated the number of closed and never opened schools, which were the categories of interest to Congress.

  1. We isolated those awards in the 2019 data set made in 2006 and beyond, eliminating all awards made before 2006.
  2. For all charter school awards with an NCES number (91.2 percent of all awards), we checked the school status against the 2020-2021 Common Core of Data (CCD). We marked charter schools as closed if they were no longer listed in the CCD, or if they converted to public schools while retaining the same NCES number. If a charter remained a charter with the same NCES number but changed its name, that school was marked open. In some states, including California, we double-checked with the state database. [NCES numbers are the unique 12-digit school identifier found in the Common Core of Data of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). We used the charter school filter in the CCD database to include awards that went to charter schools that closed as a charter and became public schools and to identify public schools that took CSP money but never converted to a charter school.]
  3. If a public school received an award to convert to a charter school but did not, we marked it as “will not open.” If schools were listed as future schools in the data set that ended in 2018 but could still not be found in the CCD, we checked outside sources and, if not found, marked it “will not open.”
  4. For the remaining 8.8 percent of schools, we accepted the school status as reported in the 2019 data set, knowing that would result in an underreporting of closed and never opened charter schools and an inflated number of open and future schools. We, therefore, erred on the side of caution.

Grantee closure


Let’s start with the smallest of the three programs, the Non-State Educational Agencies (SEA)/Developers awards, which I will refer to as non-SEA awards. These awards are given directly to charter schools by the Department of Education.

According to the GAO, the department gave out 235 non-SEA awards between 2006 and 2020. The 2019 data set, from 2006 on, contains 178 of those awards. According to Table 5 of the GAO report, only six went to schools that have closed, and four went to schools that never opened, resulting in a closure rate of 3 percent and a never-opened rate of 2 percent.

Using the CCD and additional outside sources to determine the status of schools, we found 29 — not 6 — schools that received a CSP award between 2006 and 2018 that had closed. Here we provide the names, date of grant, dates regarding the school’s closing, news stories about the closure, and other verification of closure.

Some charters closed due to low enrollment or poor test scores. Others closed, as confirmed by linked news stories, due to fraud.
We also identified 13 — not four — non-SEA grant schools that never opened between 2006 and May 2022.


Even if all of the 57 awards given after 2018 went to schools that opened and thrived (which is highly unlikely), closure rates would be 12.3 percent, and the never opened rate would be 5.5 percent of the non-SEA awardees, not 3 percent, and 2 percent.


SEA/SE grantee award closures and never-opened schools


The underreporting was even more dramatic when it came to the oldest and largest of the three CSP programs (SEA/SE).


According to the GAO, the CSP (SEA/SE) program gave 4,616 school awards totaling nearly $2 billion between 2006 and 2020. The 2019 data set identifies 4,351 SEA awards as sub-grants between 2006 and 2018. Almost all (3,992) have an NCES number associated with the school.


Within the data set, there is some duplication of schools. To catch those duplications, we identified and reported the number of unique closed or never opened schools. If we had reported by award, the number would be substantially higher. The GAO report is fuzzy in its tables and narrative, sometimes referring to schools and at other times to awards. It is possible for schools, especially longtime open schools, to receive more than one award; therefore, if the GAO counted awards, not schools, its “open school” number is inflated by more than error.


If the charter school did not have an NCES number in the data set, we again accepted the status listed by the department in 2019. As stated above, this likely results in an underreporting of closures.

GAO states in Table 2 that 429 SEA/SE awards went to now-closed charter schools—a number quite similar to the 2019 CSP data set non-updated number (409). However, we found that more than twice as many, 951 closed charter schools, received one or more awards. In addition, while the GAO reported that 209 schools never opened, we identified 230. These numbers do not include closed and unopened schools given grants after 2018. The total number is higher than what we report; it cannot go lower.


Note that we did not analyze the closures of charter schools that received Charter Management Organizations (CMO) awards since the department only required CMOs to report their schools beginning in 2012. The report lists 37 percent of that CSP CMO-grant funding going to “future schools.”

Our complete analysis is available upon request. It was sent to the GAO and the department along with a tool developed by data expert Ryan Pfleger that allows one to examine the history of schools by enrollment and status across the years of the CCD. I received an email acknowledgment and thank you from a representative of the Department of Education. I received no response from the GAO.


The CCD can be an imperfect source and may have generated minor errors in our final numbers. Nevertheless, it would have provided a far more accurate accounting of “schools that eventually closed” than the outdated status in the data set of the department they were asked to audit.


The ripple effect


The error described above directly affects the number of charter schools listed as open, closed, future, and will not open. It also affects the calculation of the total taxpayer dollars that have been wasted on CSP charter schools. For example, if more than twice the number of charter schools that received CSP grants closed, the GAO report’s estimation of $152 million spent on closed and never opened SEA/SE schools during those years is only capturing less than half of that cost since more funds went to closed schools than schools that never opened.

The state-specific numbers set forth on pages 13-15 of the report similarly need correction. Some of the states identified as the biggest wasters in the report’s Figure 15 may not deserve that identification. Other states may earn the dubious honor of being in the chart.


What now?


It is difficult to track charter school closures. Some schools close as charters and become public schools. We have seen schools switch between charter and public several times. At other times, a school shuts, and a new management organization takes it over. Sometimes the school’s name, staff, and students are different; sometimes not. Charter schools merge. In some states, information is easy to find; in others, information is obscure. It doesn’t have to be this way; states and the federal Charter School Program can demand better record-keeping and reporting.


The GAO’s descriptive analysis needs to be checked, verifying whether a school is currently open using the CCD. Claims regarding closed and open schools in their report need to be revised so that it is clear those are only closures during the active years of the grants. The stakes are even higher, however, for families. The closure of any school, whether public, charter, or private, is a painful and disruptive event in a child’s life. Families deserve honest information regarding closure risk when they enroll their children in a charter school. It is time for the GAO to revise its report to Congress and the public.


-0-0-


This is the response from the GAO:


“We need to use rigorous methodologies that are acceptable to social scientists and statisticians and can withstand scrutiny. Practically speaking, we cannot Google the status of 6,000 schools and call that proper research. When we spot checked some of what Ms. Burris cited, we came up with conflicting results. As with any methodology and any data set, ours had limitations and they were disclosed clearly in the report.

“In addition, GAO is an independent agency. We do work for Congress, but they do not dictate our research objectives, methodologies, or scope of work. GAO determined that the best way to meet Congress’s needs in this case was to conduct a descriptive analysis, which examines trends and relationships, and to pair that with a much more sophisticated model with rigorous controls in place. This was done to properly examine underlying issue at hand: the effectiveness of CSP awards. We laid out this approach to the relevant Congressional stakeholders prior to the work beginning, and they determined that it met their needs. And then it was laid out in our report as well.We know critics who do not like our message will cherry pick at different statistics. But the message is based on a sound analysis and we stand by it.”


Here is Burris’s response:


“The GAO used outdated charter school status data as the basis of their descriptive analysis. The use of that data was confirmed in an email sent to me by the GAO and in the appendix of the report. The rationale for not using the Common Core of Data rather than the data provided by the Department they were auditing was illogical, especially given that they used the Common Core of Data for what they referred to as their “more rigorous model.” The charter school status data they used is not updated once a grant is closed. This was confirmed in an email from a Department of Education spokesperson to Ms. Strauss. Therefore, when the GAO report states that its information is current as of May 2022, it is providing false information to both Congress and the public. One does not need to “google” schools. The GAO is well aware that this is not the methodology I used. If their spot check resulted in conflicting results, I invite them to send those examples to me.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Deregulation, Disruption, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Scandals, U.S. Department of Education

Florida: DeSantis Wages War on COVID Vaccines

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2022 //
56

Governor Ron DeSantis took the unusual step of convening a grand jury to investigate COVID vaccines. His opposition to the vaccines has been a hallmark of his administration. He wants to be the leading anti-vaxxer in the nation. He even found a public health official to serve as his Surgeon General who also opposes the vaccines. DeSantis relies on “experts” who oppose the vaccines, such as those who signed the so-called Great Barrington Resolution.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he plans to petition the state’s Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.

The Republican governor, who is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, gave no specifics on what wrongdoing the panel would investigate, but suggested it would be in part aimed to jog loose more information from pharmaceutical companies about the vaccines and potential side effects.

He made the announcement following a roundtable with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and a panel of scientists and physicians.

“We’ll be able to get the data whether they want to give it or not,” DeSantis said. “In Florida, it is illegal to mislead and misrepresent, especially when you are talking about the efficacy of a drug.”

Vaccine studies funded by pharmaceutical companies that developed COVID-19 vaccines have been published in peer-reviewed journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, and government panels reviewed data on the safety and effectiveness of the shots before approving them for use.

Statewide grand juries, usually comprised of 18 people, can investigate criminal activity and issue indictments but also examine systemic problems in Florida and make recommendations. Recent such panels have tackled immigration issues and school safety.

DeSantis noted that Florida recently “got $3.2 billion through legal action against those responsible for the opioid crisis. So, it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented.” That money came largely through lawsuits, and settlements with drug makers, retailers and distributors.

DeSantis said he expects to get approval from the Supreme Court for the statewide grand jury to be empaneled, likely in the Tampa Bay area.

“That will come with legal processes that will be able to get more information and to bring legal accountability to those who committed misconduct,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis also announced that he is creating an entity called the “Public Health Integrity Committee,” which will include many of the physicians and scientists who participated in the roundtable on Tuesday. The group includes prominent opponents of lockdowns, federal vaccine mandates, and child vaccinations.

He said that over the course of the pandemic some people have lost faith in public health institutions, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The governor has frequently spoken out against CDC directives, including mask and vaccine mandates, and filed lawsuits to stop many from taking effect in Florida.

Additionally, the governor announced that Ladapo will conduct research through the University of Florida to ”assess sudden deaths of individuals in good health who received a COVID-19 vaccine.” In addition, he said that the Florida Department of Health will utilize disease surveillance and vital statistics to assess such deaths.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article269950162.html#storylink=cpy

Categories DeSantis, Florida, Health, Ignorance, Science, Stupid
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