Stand your ground laws and the Trayvon Martin case. What does LAUSD have to do to get Race to the Top” money? FDA considers allowing patients to self-diagnose illnesses. Sanjay Gupta operates in a new level.
"Stand your ground" laws and the Trayvon Martin case
The fatal shooting of 17-year old Trayvon Martin has sparked a fiery response across the country. The black teenager was shot last month by a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman, 28, claims he shot Martin in self-defense.
Florida is one of 17 states with a "stand your- round" law that eliminates a person's duty to retreat before using deadly force. However, you must be facing the threat of an imminent and fatal attack -- Martin was unarmed at the time of the confrontation. Yesterday, The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice opened investigations into the Martin case.
Today the prosecutors' office in central Florida announced a grand jury will probe the case. As reported by the Associated Press, Zimmerman spotted Martin during a neighborhood patrol on a rainy night, then called 911 to report a suspicious person. Against the advice of the 911 dispatcher, Zimmerman followed Martin who was walking home after buying candy at a convenience store.
Details of what happened next are sketchy. The case also raises red flags around race. The local sheriff's office say Zimmerman called the police to report suspicious persons on a number of occasions -- all of whom were black, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Zimmerman has been described as white, but his father says he comes from a multi-racial and Spanish-speaking family.
Guests:
Michael L. Seigel, Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law; Former Federal Prosecutor; Director, Criminal Justice Center
David Workman, Communications Director for the Second Amendment
Joe Hicks, Co-Founder and Vice President of Los Angeles-based civil rights and social criticism organization Community Advocates, Inc.
What does LAUSD have to do to get 'Race to the Top' money?
The U.S. Department of Education has opened up President Obama’s "Race to the Top" program to large school districts. The federal program provides billions of dollars to states that promise to make bold education reforms. California has competed for – and failed to get – Race to the Top funds three times in the last two years. Governor Brown refused to sign the state’s last proposal, leaving individual districts with no hope of winning, because only states could apply. For L.A. Unified, a successful application could mean hundreds of millions of badly-needed dollars.
According to Superintendent John Deasy, guidelines for the application will be out within the month, but he suspects the administration will look for districts to improve reform around core curriculum and teacher evaluations like they did last year.
“They certainly are the controversial ones, but I would argue the necessary ones: A good, robust, meaningful performance appraisal, the teachers and principals; strong professional development, to help teachers to continue to improve their practice; ways to retain top performers and support them; and how to begin to help our students prepare for the new, common core curriculum,” he said.
Though California has failed to secure funds the last two years, Deasy said it was due to a lack of interest in the issue. “I think it was pretty clear that they were not interested in transforming teacher evaluation, administrator evaluation,” he said. “And ... there seems to be a lack of interest in using data systems in terms of strong decision making around that.”
Deasy went on to say that LAUSD is ahead in the competition.
“All three, by the way, are items that LAUSD are out in front of. If we just took the transformation reforms that we’ve launched this year, I think that would make an incredibly strong application.”
Deasy supports these kinds of reforms that have helped other states secure the money. But the United Teachers Los Angeles takes issue with aspects of his pilot programs, and to succeed, he’ll need to reach an agreement with the teachers’ union.
United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher said California made a wise decision not to apply for "Race to the Top," because the reform necessary to qualify are not worth the amount of money received.
“In order to qualify for even being considered in your state to receive those small grants, the state has had to make huge changes in all sorts of parts of the education code. It’s really a brilliant system in that it manages to get states to make huge changes in how they do business, give away a big amount of their autonomy, for the slight possibility that a small amount of money may be coming forward,” he said.
Fletcher said that changes to teacher evaluation need to be made, but what concerns him most is part of Deasy’s proposed reform, which includes using test scores to evaluate teachers.
“I’ve been with LAUSD for 29 years, and I have an unbroken string of perfect evaluations. And I may be a good teacher, but I suspect I’m not quite that good,” he admitted. “So are there places where we can revisit the system and make it a system that’s more responsive to teachers? Absolutely. ... But, attaching the kind of numerical system that we’re talking about, as if teacher could be reduced to the grade you see on a restaurant, A, B, or C, and be simplified down to that level, makes no sense.”
Deasy responded by saying test score data is a minority component of the whole evaluation, and maintained that receiving $10 million to help LAUSD continue to improve teaching and students is worth the reforms needed to apply.
“I get very concerned when I hear the phrase ... ‘We don’t want to reduce teachers to a letter grade,’ and, in the same breath, we don’t seem to have a problem doing that to students. I think that finding balance in this for both youth and adults is going to be critical, without having to forget about the fact that actually, they do need to learn, and we need to be accountable for it.”
Fletcher cited New York City's slight in the quest for "Race to the Top" funds, when they redid their teacher evaluation system to qualify for the grants. The teachers union and the district agreed that test scores would weigh no more than 40 percent in the evaluation, but that was forgotten when the state applied.
"Because of the requirements that 'Race to the Top' in the state of New York laid upon the system, if a teacher is perfect in every other way ... but if that one year, that teacher’s test score component does not meet the required level, even though it’s said it’s only 40 percent, that teacher has to be rated as ineffective regardless of the as other 60 percent," he explained.
Deasy agreed that New York City's move was a mistake, and hopes that Los Angeles can learn from the incident.
"I’m very much looking forward to the conversation where LAUSD can lead the nation and correct what I would call the unfortunate lessons learned from New York. We have an opportunity to lead in this country," he said.
Do district and union officials have what it takes to collaborate on a winning application? What’s in the way? What’s at stake? And what proposed reforms should be included to ensure LAUSD wins the desperately needed funds?
Guests:
Warren Fletcher, President, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)
Dr. John Deasy, Superintendent of LAUSD
Ama Nyamekye, Educators 4 Excellence: Los Angeles, a teacher-led education reform organization
FDA considers allowing patients to self-diagnose illnesses
Later this week, the Food and Drug Administration will hold a hearing on whether or not to allow patients to use self-diagnostic kiosks in pharmacies or even certain apps to diagnose diseases like asthma, diabetes and migraines.
Some of the most widely used prescription medication for those illness would then be made available over the counter. This over-the-counter switch is just one of many changes the FDA is looking to make aimed at increasing access to common drugs and speeding up the approval process for new medications. The change comes after drug companies and certain members of Congress put pressure on the FDA saying the process of accessing and approving drugs has become more burdensome than in other parts of the world.
Not all drugs will be prescription free however, certain medications must still be prescribed at first by a doctor but the new Kiosks will go a long way to screening potential users and ease the pressure of doctor’s visits. FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said in a statement about the new protocol; “The world is changing and we have to change with it.”
Will the new self-diagnose kiosks have a positive effect on getting prescription medications? Are you concerned with the loosening of safety regulations on popular drug manufacturers? Should the FDA embrace new technologies like other industries?
Guests:
Dr. Bill Soller, Executive Director, Center for Consumer Self Care; Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania
Sanjay Gupta on doctors and the mistakes they make
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a practicing neurosurgeon best known as CNN’s chief medical correspondent. Now, Gupta has written his first novel called “Monday Mornings.” The title refers to the meetings surgeons attend, in which they discuss and justify the life and death decisions they’ve made during recent operations.
The book provides a unique look into the high-pressure world of modern medicine. We all know surgeons make mistakes and that sometimes people die because of those mistakes. But when it comes time for surgeons to answer for bad outcomes, the operation takes placed behind tightly closed doors.
These Monday morning meetings or “Morbidity and Mortality” conferences provide the dramatic backdrop to Gupta’s novel, in which he pulls back the curtain on the secretive process, revealing the lives of five surgeons as they try to cope with their personal and professional failings. How much fact is mixed into this fictional tale? What’s the takeaway for doctors and patients alike?