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State lawmakers are looking to override fellow Republican Governor Mike DeWine's veto, the bill affecting trans youth and learning more about the state's new education agency under the governor's control.

With its director this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

Governor Mike dewine's veto of the bill that would ban trans youth from receiving gender transition treatments or playing girl sports was a relief to some and a shock to others.

When announcing the veto, DeWine said he talked to families with trans kids who said they might have died by suicide without treatment.

So he considers this a pro-life issue and a parents rights issue.

On Friday, DeWine said the state is taking steps to implement rules that aren't in the bill on data collection and required mental health counseling.

And he signed an executive order enacting an emergency ban on gender transition surgeries for minors anywhere in Ohio.

This ban is effective immediately.

Ohio law allows for emergency rules that provisions important to public safety and other important public policy goals specified in statute can be put in place while the full rulemaking process precedes.

This will ensure that surgeries of this type on minors can never happen in Ohio.

DeWine's veto was blasted by Republicans around the country, including former President Trump, who wrote on his social media site that DeWine, quote, has fallen to the radical left and quote, I'm finished with this stuff.

DeWine suggested lawmakers deal with legislation he supported on implementing the new legalized marijuana law if they're coming back early from their break.

But the House and Senate are showing signs that they will vote to override with the House coming back Wednesday.

The first Senate session of 2024 is set for January 24th, but they could be called back earlier.

That is what the conservative Christian group Citizens for Christian Virtue is hoping will happen.

Aaron Beyer leads that influential organization which strongly supports House Bill 68 and wants an override of DeWine's veto.

I spoke to Beyer before DeWine's press conference about the executive order and steps to put rules in place.

By all means.

It looks like it's happening next week because I think that's what the members want from CVS's perspective.

We've been pushing to get this overridden as fast as possible, and that was whenever the members could be there and the votes would be there.

Right.

And so credit to Speaker Stevens, Credit to Gary, click representing Gary, click, click, the bill's sponsor and the members themselves.

I think for a lot of folks, the veto was a surprise.

I was surprised by it, certainly.

And the national reaction to it.

Well, beyond, you know, CVS pressure, I think really drove a lot of this to get this done sooner rather than later.

So that was that was encouraging.

Have you been in any conversations with lawmakers about this?

Are the votes there to override?

We feel confident that the votes are there.

You know, we've been reaching out to members.

We're always talking to members, always reaching out, always talking with folks about what's going on and everything we've heard.

Again, this is one of these things.

It doesn't feel like a heavy lift on this one, if you will, to to encourage folks to do this override, because this is you know, you look at the House, they voted twice on this this year alone.

Right.

And each time with a veto proof majority and the Senate had a really strong vote for it as well.

So we feel confident about it.

And that's just because this is where the members are.

The members believe in this bill.

They believe in protecting children and protecting sports.

And that's why we feel feel good that this is going to get.

Overridden, DeWine said in his press conference about the veto.

And I'm quoting here These are gut wrenching decisions that should be made by parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them now, seek Me and others who have been pushing for this have also talked about parents rights when it comes to education.

So why don't parents rights count here?

Because parents don't have the right to abuse their children.

And the reality is sterilizing a child for their life with cross-sex hormones and puberty, blocking drugs and removing body parts for something that's physically and biologically impossible, like changing your sex is abusive.

And that's why we say this.

This isn't one of these things that is a parents rights issue.

And I think everybody understands that parents rights have a have a limit to it.

And certainly the members of the House and Senate very much see that as well.

Now, hospitals have been saying that gender transition surgeries are not happening on minors.

So why is it necessary?

Well, that's one aspect of the bill.

But they actually did say those surgeries are happening.

They're saying they don't perform them.

But actually, in House Committee Chairman Lipps and Representative Brian Stewart got the children's hospitals to admit that they are referring for these surgeries or they have referred surgeries for minors.

Absolutely.

And so by all means, this kind of talking out of two sides of your mouth there when they're saying all these surgeries aren't happening.

So then why do they care if we're banning these surgeries?

And by all means, we do know they are happening in the state.

DeWine said he talked to parents who said their kids would be dead from suicide without gender transition treatment.

So he said, quote, This is a question of life as far as I'm concerned.

Obviously, your organization is pro-life, identifies that way.

You don't see this as a question of life.

We do see this as a question of life.

And actually, we see that it's this gender medicine that they're doing on kids that's causing these suicidal ideation.

If you really step back and look at the claims of the children's hospitals and the folks that are opposing this bill, they're saying that because children can't access these bills or because how hard it is to be a transgender student or transgender child today in Ohio and America, they are committing higher levels than normal suicide.

And everybody can look at the suicide numbers and see a rise as has happened.

The reality is, though, that claim doesn't make any sense when you actually step back and think about it, because basically what they're saying is that it is harder to be a transgender child in America today than it was ten or 15 years ago.

Right.

And nobody was using preferred pronouns ten years ago.

Nobody was talking about these things ten years ago.

So obviously, that can't be the case.

And I'm also, too throughout history, we've not seen that persecution creates a rise to suicide, right?

That we didn't see these levels of suicide amongst enslaved peoples or, you know, Jews in the Holocaust.

We didn't we didn't see that.

So that that that doesn't make sense to make that claim.

What we do see is that you have children who are in difficult situations, who are being told that they were born in the wrong body, and then children who are highly hormonal being injected with even more cross sex hormones and children that are dealing with mental health issues.

So instead of getting the help for that, we're actually injecting them with more hormones and telling them that they are physically born in the wrong body, that would make sense to be causing the suicide ideation.

That's why we agree that this is a life or death issue.

But the bottom line is it's these clinics and it's this dangerous ideology that's being pushed on children.

That's leading to this these high levels of suicide.

So you think they're being told they were born in the wrong body?

Not that they feel that that is their reality.

Why can't both of those things be true, that they they feel that way, but it's also something that's being taught and pushed on them by these clinics.

I don't see those ideas as being mutually exclusive.

And actually the best data that we have on this, Catherine, the Swiss study that shows suicide actually is 19 times higher for people who complete transition than for the general population.

That's a that that's one of the things that we said time and time again.

And actually, Senator Andy Brenner really held the children's hospitals feet to the fire on that on the Senate floor when he said I asked throughout the committee hearing after 6 hours of hearing for real studies that support your claims.

And the reality is all of the the peer review, legitimate studies, academic studies out there show that these procedures on children are incredibly dangerous and need to be stopped.

The Children's Hospital Association of Ohio said in a statement, quote, OCR has never been opposed to a ban on surgeries for youth with gender dysphoria and would support that law.

Our opposition to HB 68 has always been exclusively over the total ban on age appropriate medication treatment for an extremely small but high risk population and the mental health implications for those youth.

Our member hospitals do not perform surgeries for this condition and do not refer minors for surgery.

We vehemently disagree with that interpretation of our dialog during testimony in the House of Representatives.

And regarding Bears comments about trans youth and suicide.

13 peer reviewed studies from medical facilities, including Harvard Medical School and clinics in Washington, Missouri, Texas and Ohio have found gender affirming care results in favorable mental health outcomes.

And a 2022 Stanford study found transgender people who began hormone treatment as teens had fewer thoughts of suicide than those who started those treatments as adults.

I'll have more of my conversation with Aaron Beyer from the Center for Christian Virtue on this show next week.

The New Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is now about three months old.

The agency was created in the state budget to do something that governors going back to Dick Celeste and George Voinovich, have wanted more gubernatorial control over education in Ohio.

The new agency known as DO has assumed authority over academic policy powers that were held by the State Board of Education.

A lawsuit attempted to stop that, but a Franklin County judge's order allowed it to move forward and for Governor Mike DeWine to appoint a director.

He is Steve Jackson, a former superintendent who served as state school superintendent for 11 days in 2022 before resigning over questions about his access to information about applicants for that job.

I talked with Daggett about his new role this week.

I have to first give kudos to the interim state superintendent, Stephanie Siddons, and then Chris warlord, and then Jessica Illini, who then served as the interim director of the new agency during this time period.

They did a phenomenal job of under pretty trying circumstances, given the uncertainty of what was going to happen with legislation and so on.

But they kept the boat going round all the doors in the right direction.

They created future forward Ohio priorities, which match my own personal priorities, which as we transition to a new agency, a cabinet agency now are happened to be the priorities of the governor.

And so that's a good match and that's a good alignment.

And that's one of the reasons I chose to pursue this opportunity, is because in my in my career, I served as superintendent, high school, principal director, all these kind of things.

Literacy has always been my one thing because it's so fundamental.

I even go so far sometimes to suggest that reading is a civil right.

I mean, I feel that strongly about it, that it's so fundamental to everything we do.

If you cannot read and write at grade level, you are that you are behind and in your ability to catch up is compromised.

And so I applaud the governor for coming out.

And frankly, to be honest, Karen, one of the reasons that I really seriously consider the job is when you kind of put a stake in the ground around the science of reading and that kind of you put a stake in the ground around the science of reading.

And I applaud him for that.

Even when I was a citizen out there, I just thought that was that was bold, courageous, and it's the right thing to do for Ohio.

I want to get back to the science of reading, but I want to ask you, while I while we're on this first topic, there are those who remember you as a former superintendent, former state school board member.

You were superintend for about 11 days, then signed a settlement agreement on ethics violations relating to that resignation.

How did you go from that to this job?

Were there any obstacles to getting the job after having served for those 11 days?

Yeah, No, You know, I don't know about obstacles per se.

I think for me, after I went through that series of events, it was really kind of taking stock and taking a step back and just kind of clearing my head and it was a difficult time for my wife and I because I couldn't talk to anybody about it.

And and, you know, but we got through I did the settlement, which I think was the right thing to do.

And then, you know, as the legislation was out there percolating, I did keep an eye on on on that.

And as it continued to evolve and then to the point I just made about the governor doing what he did, I said this is this is the opportunity that I think that I really want to invest my.

I told the governor, I said, you know, I wasn't looking for a job.

You know, I got pretty good at golf because I had a lot of time to spend doing it, but I was looking to make a difference.

I mean, that's what's driven me my entire career.

And and I think we really have an opportunity as a cabinet agency working with other agencies and other entities in the state and think about this.

And, you know, I'll try not to talk too long here, but but if we apply kind of a marshall Plan approach to literacy in our state, where we leverage all the assets available to us in our state, not just educational assets, but education, community assets and leverage it on this one goal.

I think what we could do, I think what we could do, and that's what's driven me to to want to do this work.

The science of reading is an evidence based way of teaching literacy that includes building blocks of words or phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, text comprehension.

So all of that is being implemented in more than 30 states.

What is different about that versus how Ohio kids have been learning?

Yeah, so, you know, I'm old enough to have gone through the reading wars.

I will tell you, as a superintendent in Reynolds Park City, we implemented the components of the science of reading.

We didn't call it the science of reading at that point in time.

I'm not sure why we didn't call it that, but and it paid dividends for us.

I mean, if you go back and look, are our kids lives are rates if is pretty impressive.

And and so it's no accident that 30 some states have done this.

You know, we know more today about how the brain functions and how cognitive process processes work than we've ever known before.

It's a natural evolution, too.

And that's not to condemn anything that was done in the past because we're more we have more understanding now.

And I suspect five years from now, we'll know even more.

And I think that's a natural evolution of education.

You know, and so I'm just happy to embrace it.

Our challenge at the at the department is to work with others to implement.

Now, with five D the science of reading.

And you have to implement it through all of the school districts around the state, all the state school or all the school boards.

Everybody.

Everybody's on board with this.

Well, I think, you know, I do think that the one issue that in times of, you know, maybe some challenges around partizan politics or divisions and all those things, this is the one issue that I think is bipartisan.

And I think this is the one issue that I would be shocked to learn that school board members and our superintendents would embrace, and that is ensuring kids can read at or above grade level through the system.

This is just not an early childhood issue.

This is an issue of early childhood adolescent literacy, adult literacy.

And I think that that that that is something that people can rally behind.

There is a lawsuit that was filed by the Reading Recovery Council of North America, which is based in Ohio.

They're claiming the science of reading provision in the state budget violates the single subject rule.

Experts I've talked to have said they can't think of a time when that argument prevailed in court.

But I want to ask you about the Reading Recovery Council's claims that their method, which is balanced literacy works and the move to the science of reading is political.

I mean, is there a difference?

Are there what are the elements here?

Balanced literacy versus science of reading?

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm not an attorney.

You know, the the great thing about our country, if you disagree, you can go ahead and take it through the court system.

Let the court system do what the court system does.

I know based on the research I've seen, that the science of reading produces results, unequivocally produces results.

And that's where I'm at and that's where I'm going to stay.

My job is to enforce the law.

It is the law of Ohio To implement the science of reading is, to me, as simple as that.

One of the things that changed, too, in the last year was the third grade reading guarantee, which has been with us for more than a decade, I think.

Now, kids won't necessarily be held back.

In fact, parents can opt out of their kids being held back if they do not pass that third grade reading test.

Is the message here, though, that reading is important or it's not important?

I mean, that that whole idea of the third grade reading guarantee was to make sure kids could read at third grade level before they could move on to getting out of picture books in the chapter books, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I wasn't in those conversations that took place around the change in the law.

I will say this, that the reading issue start well before third grade and and in if you look at the the changes in the law, it does require serious interventions to be put in place around a reading improvement plan for every kid who opts the parent opts to go ahead and promote them when they're not reading at grade level than they they're required.

The district is required to provide successful evidence based reading interventions until that child reaches grade level.

So it's an ongoing process.

So even if they go to fourth grade and at the end of fourth grade, they're still not there, It follows in the fifth grade.

And so so I think they put some common sense guardrails around the the issue of retention.

But frankly, we've got to beef up our responsibilities K through three and ensure that there's that we reduce the number of kids who are not reading at grade level.

I think we have 38 about 38% of our kids last year were not reading at grade level.

And that's that's down a little bit from a previous year, but nonetheless is unacceptable.

And so I think we really have to ratchet up our our responses in the earlier grades.

Listen, my wife and my daughter and I mentioned my nieces.

My wife taught reading for 30 plus years and she taught at every level, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and so on.

She could tell you right now in kindergarten who's going to be behind and who is likely to stay behind, if not intervene properly.

And that's the issue at hand.

We have to think differently about how we use time in the school, how we use talented teachers to intervene appropriately and quickly.

And one of the key one of the great effect sizes that we've seen in the research is the leadership of the principal that has the highest effect effect size on children's ability to read.

And we often don't think about that.

We think it's just a teacher issue, but the principal.

So crucial in setting conditions in a building for both teachers and students to learn.

So but when it comes to the teachers who actually have to perform this, they have to get trained, how long is it going to take to get all those teachers trained in the science of reading so this can all be implemented?

Well, I mean, listen, the legislature and the governor with this last buy and budget, have done phenomenal investments in in providing training, high quality professional development, training for teachers, high quality instructional materials to be used.

They made massive investments in in these issues to ensure that we have the supports necessary to to move forward.

Since you are the director of the agency.

I want to ask you a couple more questions about the agency.

One of the other things that was in the budget is the expansion of vouchers to universal vouchers.

So any family that wants the state to provide financial assistance so they can send their kids to private school, can get that.

The response has been huge.

There are questions about sustainability, about that over time.

But what kind of a challenge does this big response and having to deal with all these families that now want to get into this voucher expansion program?

What's that?

What's the challenge for the Department of Education and Workforce?

Well, I think the first thing is I can't I can't be happy, happier enough to to embrace the notion that more parents have more choices.

I've always been a parent advocate.

I've always advocated for quality choices available to parents to make the kind of decisions that they think are in the best interests of their children.

So the expansion of scholarship programs and availability of educational options to parents is is something that I embrace and something that the agency will continue to embrace.

And build on.

The the expansion.

We're just going through our applications now on the scholarship piece so we don't have it fully vetted out.

But I believe the number is about 150,000 applications right now.

But again, we haven't been in them all yet, so we don't know actually how many then will actually be eligible for the scholarship.

But it is a dramatic increase over previous years.

Certainly, the advocates for public schools will say that this expansion and even money that goes to charter schools comes at the cost of public school.

Do you feel that way?

Well, I believe and I could be wrong, but I believe that the expansion was a separate appropri So, I mean, you know, people are going to choose to believe what they believe.

I think in the end, as I've said, I want parents have choices and I want to have quality choices.

And I think, listen, I was the superintendent of a public school district.

We provided choices.

At my district, we sponsored five community schools, charter schools.

We had open enrollment, entered into an entire district, open enrollment.

I think choice is a good thing.

And the thing I love most about choice is I think are.

My experience has been when parents are free to make choices, they seem to they seem to own their choice, which makes them, by definition, more involved in their job.

And who doesn't want more parent involvement in the education of their children?

I know you said you're not an attorney, but I have to come back to.

There is a lot.

Of thought I was put up.

My daughter is an attorney.

But there is a lawsuit that's continuing over the transition from the Department of Education to the Department of Education and Workforce.

The elected members of the state school board who filed that lawsuit trying to stop it, saying it takes authority from the board away from them, takes authority away from voters who elected them.

They fear it could result in the politicization of education and less independent oversight in education.

And that was part of what was blamed for the scandal involving the electronic classroom of tomorrow in court.

So how can parents and taxpayers be reassured that this move where you are following the governor's priorities will be still an independent agency that serves parents, serves kids now?

It is critical for us to have protocols in place where we get the kind of feedback that we need to hear directly from parents and other constituents.

So we we're required by law to have a public meeting at least once every two months required by law.

We intend to have a lot of the feedback loops that we already had as an agency prior to the transition in place to get feedback from constituents.

We will continue to do that.

The state Board, we have to have a good relationship with the state board and Superintendent Kraft.

I happen to know Paul for the last 20 years or so.

He and I have a great relationship.

The state board will provide feedback.

I mean, they have an open forum.

They have an opportunity for parents to come to them.

I'll work with Paul and we'll get that feedback back to us.

So communication is so essential.

Two way communication is so essential.

You're in the communication business and you know how important it is.

And I can assure you that we will have the channels of communication that ourselves, both for feedback and for information sharing.

And that is it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State Newstalk or find us online by searching the State of Ohio show.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statehouse news bureau comes from medical mutual dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans offering health insurance plans as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

More at med mutual dot com.

The law offices of Porter right Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Right.

Is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at Porter recom Porter right inspired every day.

The Ohio Education association representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.