Scientific Establishment vs Trump Over CDC, Lisa Cook Fights On, Failing City Schools： AM Update 9⧸2
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Summary
There s a lot of trouble at CDC, and it s going to require getting rid of some people over the long term. It s the Trump administration versus former CDC officials over new vaccine guidelines and more. The claim that this might be a clerical error or just a mistake? Meanwhile, Fed Gov. Lisa Cook continues her legal battle to keep her job despite mounting allegations of mortgage fraud against her. And a deep dive into the failing schools in Baltimore and why it s fueling the crime epidemic in the city.
Transcript
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It's Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, and this is your AM Update.
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There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term.
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It's the Trump administration versus former CDC officials over new vaccine guidelines and more.
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The claim that this might be clerical error or just a mistake, that's not going to fly.
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Fed Governor Lisa Cook continues her legal battle to keep her job despite mounting allegations of mortgage fraud against her.
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And a deep dive into the failing schools in Baltimore and why it's fueling the crime epidemic in the city.
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You know, the one their Democratic governor won't acknowledge?
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All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.
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It's all-out war between President Trump's Department of Health and Human Services and the Old Guard establishment scientific figures.
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Last week, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing a series of actions to end COVID vaccine mandates, demand more studies from the vaccine companies, and an end to the emergency use authorization,
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which means boosters will still be widely available for seniors and high-risk groups, but no longer automatically authorized for mass use.
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It's the latest in a series of moves aiming to fundamentally restructure the department he says is too entrenched in bureaucracy and no longer meeting the scientific gold standard.
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In July, HHS announcing a substantial restructuring, consolidating and eliminating various departments.
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In June, RFKJ dismissing the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the group that develops and sets vaccine guidance for the nation.
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The group that failed to make clear that the vaccine had a real risk of causing myocarditis, particularly in teens, even though they knew.
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Last week, the Trump administration also firing CDC Director Susan Minares only about a month after her Senate confirmation amid a vaccine policy dispute.
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Minares' lawyers saying she refused to, quote, rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives and to fire dedicated health experts.
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The White House citing Minares' clear refusal to implement Make America Healthy Again directives as the reason for her dismissal.
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Four top-ranking CDC officials resigning in the wake of Minares' ouster, clearly trying to generate buzz and create a firestorm around RFKJ's management of HHS.
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Secretary Kennedy responding to the fallout on Thursday at an event in Texas.
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The CDC is an agency that is very troubled for a very long time.
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And anybody who lives through the COVID pandemic and saw all of these bizarre recommendations that were not science-based, all the misinformation,
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understands that the CDC has on its website today.
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There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture.
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Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, who, when not posing for magazine covers in a leather pentagram harness or taking R-rated pictures in BDSM wear or lecturing us on how the proper term is pregnant people, not pregnant women,
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when he was not doing that, he was overseeing the vaccine recommendations program.
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He took to ABC over the weekend to sound the alarm about the failure to follow the science.
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But based on what I'm seeing, based on what I've heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP,
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they're really moving in an ideologic direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.
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They do want to see the undoing of mRNA vaccination.
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They have a very specific target on COVID, but I do fear that they have other things that they are going to be working on.
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Nine former heads of the CDC, including Rochelle Walensky, best known for her public crying during the pandemic,
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and her open lamentations about how scared she was about the impending doom we were facing if people did not take the COVID vax,
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writing in a New York Times op-ed yesterday, quote,
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What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the CDC
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and to our nation's public health system over the past several months,
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culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Menares as CDC director days ago,
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is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency,
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and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.
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Last week, Secretary Kennedy announcing September 18th and 19th as the next meeting of the newly appointed
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That committee now headed by Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an expert in vaccine safety, like a real expert,
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and a former longtime Harvard Medical School professor who says he was fired last year over his stance on COVID vaccine mandates.
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Along with now-NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Kulldorff was part of the Great Barrington Project,
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correctly arguing against mass lockdowns early in the pandemic,
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a recommendation that was correct, but for which he was attacked by Dr. Fauci and Francis Collins,
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who headed up the NIH, with orders that he be smeared as some sort of fringe doctor.
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Republican Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, whose Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
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provides oversight of HHS, and who almost tanked the RFKJ nomination,
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calling for this meeting to be canceled in a statement, quote,
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serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process
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being followed for the now-announced September meeting.
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The meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted.
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If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy,
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given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.
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President Trump writing yesterday on Truth Social, quote,
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it is very important that the drug companies justify the success of their various COVID drugs.
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Many people think they are a miracle that saved millions of lives.
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With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer and I want it now.
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I have been shown information from Pfizer and others that is extraordinary,
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but they never seem to show those results to the public.
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I want them to show them now to CDC and the public and clear up this mess one way or the other.
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I hope Operation Warp Speed was as brilliant as many say it was.
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President Trump's Operation Warp Speed helped bring COVID vaccines to the market in record time,
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Under Trump 2.0, the administration is focusing on bringing greater transparency
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and requiring more transparency from the drug companies, too.
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Despite the professed panic of the scientific establishment.
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Fed overseer Lisa Cook fighting in court this week to retain her position
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after President Trump fired her for cause amid multiple mortgage fraud allegations.
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At stake when a president can remove a person who oversees the Federal Reserve for cause.
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The Fed, the body that sets interest rates for the nation,
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described in May by the U.S. Supreme Court as a uniquely structured quasi-private entity
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The agency operates independently of the executive branch,
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though board members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for 14-year terms.
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Ms. Cook was nominated by President Biden and narrowly confirmed her term set to expire in 2038.
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Last Friday, Cook's lawyer, Abby Lowell, asking Biden-appointed D.C. District Court judge,
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Gia Cobb, to block Ms. Cook's removal, to declare her termination illegal, and define the term for cause.
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instead giving Cook's attorneys until today to respond to a legal brief
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filed by the DOJ shortly before Friday's hearing.
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The filing also noting Cook has yet to offer any counter to the allegations against her.
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To the contrary, her lawyers argued last week that at least one of the allegedly fraudulent actions
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was merely, quote, an error, not that it didn't happen.
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In August, the nation's top housing finance regulator, Bill Pulte,
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submitting two criminal referrals against Cook,
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alleging fraud on mortgage loan applications across three different properties,
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where Cook allegedly wrongly classified the purpose of the properties,
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potentially to secure more favorable financial terms.
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Cook's legal team pointing to President Trump's highly public battle with the Fed
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Attorney Lowell also arguing the incidents occurred before her term began in 2022,
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and therefore somehow do not qualify as proper cause for termination.
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skeptical Cook's arguments will hold up in court.
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Thus far, and I find this really notable, in the briefs that have been submitted by Lisa Cook's lawyer,
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No explanation of what she did, how this happened.
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There's some reference to maybe it's a clerical error.
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Today, in court, Abby Lowell, very good lawyer.
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And the claim that this might be clerical error or just a mistake,
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that's not going to fly because Lisa Cook is one of the most established, accomplished financial
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I think that the allegations on their face could be enough for a judge to say,
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look, I'm going to defer to the president on cause.
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For now, Cook remains on the Fed board pending a decision from the judge.
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A ruling in favor of the Trump administration could reshape the independence of agencies
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However, the Supreme Court's clarification of the Fed's unique status
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may throw a monkey wrench into any Trump plan to interfere with the Federal Reserve.
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Coming up, as President Trump clashes with Maryland Governor Wes Moore over crime in Baltimore,
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a local investigative reporter says the real problem fueling this crisis
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A once great American city, Baltimore, now plagued by entrenched poverty, persistent violence, and failing institutions.
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Just last week, President Trump and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, publicly clashing over city safety
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as President Trump floats the idea of mobilizing the National Guard into crime-plagued cities around the country.
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Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth.
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Wes Moore was telling me he wants, I want to walk with the president.
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Well, I said, I want to walk with you too someday.
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But first you've got to clean up your crime because I'm not walking in Baltimore right now.
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For years, Baltimore spiraling downward with seemingly little hope for recovery.
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Fox 45 investigative reporter Chris Pabst says much of this is due to the failure of Baltimore City schools.
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Pabst uncovering widespread grade changing and data manipulation, exposing a system where
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thousands of students are unable to read, write, or do basic math and yet are still graduating.
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We spoke with Pabst about his findings, chronicled in his new book called Failure Factory,
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How Baltimore City Public Schools Deprived Taxpayers and Students of a Future.
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So I started digging through test scores for Baltimore City.
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And there's about 160 schools, 165 individual schools in the city at the time.
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And I just made a massive spreadsheet of all of the data.
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I found that there were six schools in Baltimore City that did not have a single student that was
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proficient in any state testing, not math, not English.
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These six schools could not produce one student who could pass any state test.
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And at the time, Baltimore City Public Schools was the third or fourth most funded large school system
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Following that report concerned parents and students reaching out to Pabst,
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In his reporting, Pabst uncovering thousands of instances of grade changing,
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allowing students to advance despite not meeting proficiency standards.
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City schools also adopting a so-called one-fail policy,
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meaning a student can only be held back one time before ninth grade,
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regardless of whether he or she meets academic standards
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and regardless of whether they deserve to move on.
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Even if desperate parents beg for their child to be held back,
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Pabst here explains the inverted incentives leading to such dismal outcomes.
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School systems prioritize data and money over everything else.
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The reason that these kids are getting pushed through the school system
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without getting the education that they need is because of the funding.
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Student enrollment determines funding for a school.
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And the more kids that you have enrolled, the more money you get.
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So as long as these kids are passing through the school system
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and they're going from grade to grade, it doesn't matter if they can read.
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The school system is going to get the money for that kid.
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And that's why in Baltimore City and many other cities and school systems around the country,
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we are seeing a lack of education because money, the quality of education that a kid gets
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does not have anything to do with the amount of money the school gets.
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The money a school gets is based on enrollment and kids passing, not learning.
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It's about passing more students so the data looks better.
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Despite poor student results, Baltimore City Public Schools are among the most
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As funding increases, outcomes are getting worse, Papp says.
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The school system academically is in a worse place now than it was eight years ago.
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But the school system financially is in a much better place.
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In 2017, Baltimore City Public Schools was getting a $1.3 billion budget.
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In 2024, which is eight school years later, it had a $1.7 billion budget.
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The school system is getting $400 million more dollars than it was eight years ago.
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The other thing that's extremely important to look at is enrollment.
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You have 6,500 fewer students in that school system.
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So the school system is getting more money to educate fewer students, and the outcomes are
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Papp's finding data fudging goes beyond academics.
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Baltimore City Schools, over a 12-year period or a 10-year period, saw a 98% drop in arrests.
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Most people would look at that and they would say, wow, Baltimore City Schools is really getting
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But we know when we look at crime data in the city, we look at murders in the city.
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At the time when that was happening, when the drop of arrests were happening in schools,
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And Baltimore City was labeled the most dangerous city in America.
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But there was a 98% drop in the number of kids being arrested in schools.
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And it was simply because the school system decided, we're not going to arrest students
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Pabst contends that the crime problems facing Baltimore are directly related to the failing
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That the people that are coming out of the school system don't have the skills that are
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The greatest hurdle preventing systemic change?
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There is no public official that I'm aware of inside Baltimore City that is screaming for
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the school system to educate the students better.
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The only elected Republican in America that has any jurisdiction over Baltimore City is Donald
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Every other elected official in Baltimore City is a Democrat.
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It is one party rule to the greatest possible extent.
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There is nobody who is standing up to my knowledge, at least they're not doing it publicly, who
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is saying to the school system, if we're going to keep giving you $1.7 billion, you cannot
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have 10% of students who are proficient in math, which is the data from 2024.
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A $1.7 billion budget, 10% of students in the entire school system who are proficient in
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math. And I've spent the last eight years going to politician from politician to politician saying,
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do you find this acceptable? And there is simply nobody who is willing to come out publicly and
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demand better for the students of Baltimore City, for the parents of Baltimore City, for the taxpayers.
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The problems facing Baltimore plaguing inner city schools across the nation, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago,
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thousands of children across America failed by the public school system.
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Pabst identifies two immediate steps that could right the ship, not just in Baltimore, but in public schools
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The first one is they have to increase the expectations of the students. For decades,
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we've been lowering the academic bar. Students will achieve the level that the adults set for
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them. And if the adults are setting a low bar, that's what the kids are going to achieve.
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You have to raise the bar. Now, in the short term, what's going to happen is you're going to have a lot
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more kids failing. But in the long run, those kids are going to adapt and they're going to raise their
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level of education to be able to meet the standard the adults set for them. The second thing to improve
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the schools is you have to address the violence. You cannot learn in a school system when they are
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continually being disrupted by fights and disorderly kids. That has to change.
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We asked Baltimore public schools for comment on Pabst claims and have not yet heard anything back.
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And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show.
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We have Ben Shapiro for the full show today, live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east,
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on youtube.com slash Megan Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.