[Yoast SEO: Meta Description Not Working

I’m using the SEO Plugin BUT the Meta Description was using the Site Description in the WP Configuration and NOT the text generated by the SEO Plugin. Is this a function (inteference) of the Theme? I eliminated the text from the WP config and now the field is empty. I tried using the %%excerpt%% tag, %%excerpt_only%%.

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″ />
<meta name=”description” content=”” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Net-Presence Updates” />

Any suggestions?
YBA