Divemedic

Wasting Money

19 year old Aleysha Ortiz graduated with honors from Hartford Public High School in 2024. She enrolled at the University of Connecticut, who admits students without requiring SAT scores. She is suing the public school because she can’t cope with the rigors of college. That is odd to me because I found college, with a handful courses being the exception, to be easy. Why is an honor student finding it so difficult?

Because she is illiterate. That’s right- she graduated with honors, but cannot read or write.

I met my wife just after I retired from being a paramedic in 2014. I was driving her nuts because I am a high energy guy, and it was killing me to sit at home every day. She talked me into working as a teacher- meaning that our schedules would line up, and we would have time that we could spend together. I started by teaching two classes a day, then progressed to full time for my second year. I taught high school for six and a half years. During that time, I saw a lot of this. How does this happen?

The Department of Education, that’s how.

Funding is tied to benchmarks. Special Ed students don’t have to meet them. The incentive here is to make as many kids special ed as possible. It needs to be done because not only do special ed kids bring increased funding per student, but missing the testing benchmarks means less money. The law is called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It says that it is unfair and discriminatory to treat students with intellectual disabilities (what used to be referred to as retarded) the same as other students. So this law was passed to make things more equitable. (Not equal, which is the same standard, but equitable, meaning that they have the same outcome.)

School funding for special education students says that they have to be permitted to pass, and that their diploma and transcript can’t say a thing about the fact that they were special Ed, or that they were passed without meeting benchmarks. In fact, my school district even had a policy stating that non-English speaking students couldn’t receive anything less than a C.

For all students, not just special Ed, teachers are under a microscope. I was once told that another teacher was obviously better at teaching than I was, because all of her students received A’s in her course. If more than 15% of your students received less than a C, you had to submit a written plan to school administrators on how you were going to get their grades up. If more than 15% of your students get below a C for two years in a row, you are fired. The only incentive there is to pass everyone in order to keep your job.

When I was put in charge of teaching Biology at my school, I was given 6 classes of it. The teacher who had been teaching that schedule before me had been fired. I was told that the school’s goal was to have half of the students pass the standardized test on Biology at the end of the year. They told me that they didn’t expect me to hit that goal the first year, but were hoping I could do it by year three. At the end of that first year, 67% of my students hit the benchmark. My evaluation? Meets expectations (in other words, average). Why was that? Because almost a quarter of my students had below a C. I countered by pointing out that my grades were an accurate reflection of my students’ abilities. That didn’t matter.

The goals are difficult, if not impossible. The only real incentive that students have is grades, and some don’t even have that as an incentive. If you remove any possibility of negative outcomes, many students just won’t do anything. That isn’t on the teacher.

The entire education system in this nation is broken. I know- I was teaching in it for more than 6 years. It isn’t just the teachers. Administrators don’t care about the kids who are discipline problems, so they don’t do anything about it. The parents and the teachers also play a huge role in the suckage that is our school system.

There is a liberal moron in the video above claiming that the problem is with inequality. Bullshit. The list is of reasons for the failure is long-

  • There are kids who never come to school. You can’t make them. More than half of my students were chronically absent (meaning out of school more than 20% of the time). More than 10% of them were absent more than half of the time. In a 180 day school year, I had more than one student who were absent over 100 days.
  • Their parents don’t care, and no one is prosecuted for truancy.
  • There are parents who claim to “home school” but don’t actually bother to teach the kids anything. Yes, it happens. I know a few.
  • Students who do come to school and care, largely are cheating their way through school using apps, Google searches, and other cheats. That is how the girl who is the subject of this post made it- she cheated using apps.

The truth is that not every kid is smart enough for college. Not every kid is suited for school. A school that has a student for less than 1100 hours a year can’t fix 18 years of around the clock bad parenting coupled with the handicap of losing the genetic lottery. All of the programs in the world won’t turn a student with a 75 IQ and no motivation into a scholastically successful person. In this case, the mother of the girl didn’t speak English and didn’t bother to learn- she passed her parental responsibilities on to the school district.

We waste a lot of time and effort on trying educate kids who don’t want to learn, and on students with disabilities that prevent them from ever being more than simple manual laborers. There should be an exam at the end of the year when a student turns 15 (9th grade). Those who excel go to a college prep high school, students who show aptitude for it go to vocational school, students who fail are done and can go get a job. If you or your parents want to stay in school after you have failed the exam, you can pay for it yourself and go to private school. Let’s stop wasting money trying to prove that every child has the same mental aptitude. You don’t need to know calculus to run a cash register or push a broom.

Educating a child is a partnership between the student, parents, teachers, and administrators. If any one of those links fails to do their job, the effort will fail and all of the money spent will have been wasted. Let’s stop spending gobs of money to get the end result where a child receives an honors diploma and still can’t read or write.

By Divemedic, ago

OK, Karen

There is a woman in Michigan who is claiming that her neighbor, who lives 250 feet away and established his own shooting range, has made her go deaf with gunshots and T:annerite explosions.

I kind of felt bad for her until I saw this sentence:

LaRoe said she found a shell casing in her yard and points to a piece of tape over a small round hole in a window 

There is no way that a shell casing is going to be 100 yards from a shooting range. So I decided to do some math.

The Occupational and Health Administration says that any instant sound (as opposed to a continuous one) that is above 120 decibels can cause hearing loss. Thanks to the inverse square law, in order to damage her hearing from 250 feet away, the source sound would have to be somewhere around 180 decibels. That makes his shooting range even louder than a SpaceX launch, which varies between 145 and 161 decibels.

Hearing protection only reduces sound by about 15-30 db. If it was loud enough to deafen her from 100 yards away, the guy who owns the shooting range would be deaf as well, hearing protection or not.

She and the neighbors are trying to get Tannerite regulated like an explosive, claiming that it is no different than dynamite.

By Divemedic, ago

It Isn’t Just Cops

I slam cops when they are wrong, but let me flip to the other side and support them on this one. I was loosely involved with the events here. Be aware, the details are a bit disturbing.

Years ago, we had a teacher at the local school that was molesting a young child. This teacher was well liked, the students, his fellow staff, and the parents all loved him. The scores that his students received were at the top of the scale. I believe he was even teacher of the year a couple of times. No one suspected a thing.

I can’t remember for sure, but I think the victim who came forward was in Kindergarten or first grade. Like I said, this was years ago. Probably more like 20 years ago. This teacher would play a game with this young girl that he called the “finger game.” In this game, he would have her stand with her back to him and put her hands behind her back. The teacher would then put one or more fingers in her hand and she would have to tell him how many fingers were there. The game eventually changed, and it wasn’t fingers that he was putting in her hand. Yeah, disgusting shit.

The child told her parents, who reported the incident to the school. The principal investigated and decided that the accusation was unfounded. The accusations went away. Six months later, another parent came forward and was dismissed the same way, only this time the parent didn’t let it lie: they went to the police. The cops investigated and arrested the teacher. During the investigation, it was discovered that this teacher had molested more than half a dozen students over at least one school year. There may have been more victims, it’s impossible to know at that age. It also turned out that there were at least three school officials who knew about the accusations but didn’t take action because they didn’t find any evidence that they were true. The record in court painted a different story. I am including statements from one of the trials so you can read it for yourself, but I have made some slight edits to remove names.

The father told the Principal that he liked the teacher and did not want to get him in trouble, but the father wanted the game to stop. The Principal talked to two of the students, and they confirmed that this game had taken place after school while they were waiting to be picked up. One of the girls used the term “wiener” in describing the game, and one said she heard a sound like a zipper during the game. After interviewing these two students, at approximately 2:00 p.m. that day, the Principal called the Human Resources (“HR”) Department and told the Director of HR that he had received a complaint from a parent about the teacher that involved a game being played after dismissal that the father thought seemed unconventional.

Instead of notifying law enforcement, the school district’s HR department decided to investigate for themselves. They investigated for a week before finally calling the police.

The police went to the school, arrested the principal and a few other school staff members. You see, teachers are mandatory reporters- they are required to report all suspected child abuse to law enforcement and/or children and family services. It isn’t the job of school officials to investigate crimes- they are required to report them.

The press at the time was busy reporting about how the teachers were being unfairly accused of sex crimes by an overzealous police department that was out of control.

The principal was even more popular than was the teacher, and a large group of parents and teachers went to the next meeting of the local government, demanding that the charges be dropped and the police involved be fired for daring to arrest this principal, teacher, and other school staff members. The school district superintendent released a statement saying that he was fully supporting the school officials, and that they wouldn’t be fired. 

The teacher was charged with multiple counts of child abuse and of lewd and lascivious molestation of children under the age of 12. He reached a plea deal and pled guilty to one count of child abuse. He received a sentence of 8 days in jail, with credit of 8 days for time served, 5 years of probation during which he could not work with children, and a fine of less than $400. His teaching license was revoked. Pretty light penalty, I would say.

The school staff all had their charges dropped. They sued the city and the police officers involved. The case was settled. I can’t find a record for what happened to the teacher. He seemingly vanished. I am guessing that he changed his name. Of the school staff members, one wound up as a groundskeeper, one died a couple of years later, and the third now works for Publix supermarkets.

I sometimes wonder how those children are coping. They are now in their late 20s and some likely have school aged children of their own.

By Divemedic, ago

Time Sink

I am going to warn my readers that blog posts may be short and sporadic for the next couple of weeks. I am studying for a new board certification. I am looking to add a board certification in a nursing specialty. Boards are a bitch. (The title is a play on words)

By Divemedic, ago

Caliber Wars II, the 9mm Strikes Back

Peter gets into the caliber wars. I was going to comment, but the comment got pretty long, so I decided to post. I happen to be an ED nurse and a paramedic and have seen more than a couple of gunshot wounds. This is my take: The more energy you dump into the target, the more effective each individual shot will be. At ranges of 10 to 50 feet, nothing is nastier than a shotgun. A load of large shot or a slug will flat out stop an attacker nearly every time.

Likewise, a rifle is king at ranges of 50 feet on out. Carbines are a great compromise. So is a skirmish rifle like the one I built a couple of years ago– especially since a .308 will punch through most body armor.

I once had a firearm instructor tell me:

If you know you will be in a gunfight, endeavor not to be there. The easiest gunfight to win is the one you don’t get into. Failing that, bring a long gun. In fact, bring friends with long guns.

Of course, no one never knows when they will be in a gunfight. That means we need to carry a gun all of the time, and carrying long guns is inconvenient, so we carry handguns as a compromise. That’s what handguns are- a compromise. The handgun on your hip is better than the shotgun or rifle in your closet.

It’s simple for me- in a perfect world, you should carry lots of really big, fast moving bullets. All handguns are poor at stopping an attacker. Still, in a full sized handgun, I would carry a large caliber, more powerful handgun over a smaller caliber.

  • My M&P9 holds 18 rounds of 9mm, delivering a 115 grain bullet at 1400 FPS, for a total of 500 foot pounds. A handgun in 357 sig is about the same power, but only holds 15 rounds.
  • An M&P45 holds 10 rounds, delivering 200 grains at about1000 fps and 500 foot pounds.
  • An M&P10 delivers 15 rounds of that 200 grain projectile, but at 1250 fps from a 4.6 inch barrel, meaning you are sending about 700 foot pounds of energy downrange.

Seeing this, you can see that a 10mm holding 15 rounds is a great handgun. Still, I wouldn’t feel undergunned with that M&P9. In fact, I have fullsized M&P’s in 9mm, .357Sig, .40S&W, .45ACP, and 10mm. I love the M&P platform, and any of those calibers would suit me fine.

The problem is that I live in Florida. It’s hot. It’s humid, and open carry it illegal. So as a result, people wear lightweight clothes that make it a challenge to carry full sized handguns, so you leave it at home. Like the rifle in your closet, the handgun in your dresser drawer isn’t doing you any good. As a result, we wind up carrying smaller, more compact handguns. When you start looking at compact handguns, the situation becomes more, shall we say, nuanced.

When it comes to concealing handguns in lightweight clothes, you lose a lot of the advantages of the larger bullets. Now large bullets are slowed down, capacity is reduced.

A subcompact .45 now gives you only get 6 rounds, and the shorter barrel means a slower bullet, perhaps as slow as 800 fps and only 280 foot pounds with a 200 gr bullet.

Similarly, you get the same performance out of .40S&W and out of 10mm with the shortened barrel of a subcompact, and you are now restricted to 8 rounds.

The .357Sig is now delivering 9mm like performance, but with an 8 round magazine.

Subcompacts are where 9mm begins to shine. The Shield Plus is now delivering 13 rounds and with its 3.1 inch barrel you are now sending 115 grain bullets downrange at 1250 fps, delivering 400 foot pounds of energy.

It’s a tradeoff. No handgun is perfect, and each caliber has its advantages and disadvantages. Look at what you are trying to accomplish in light of the restrictions that are being placed upon you by the tactical situation.

That is the reason why I own a lot of handguns, or at least that is how I justify it to myself. To make the manual of arms and shooting easier, I largely only carry one brand. In my case, I shoot the M&P line. You may decide to shoot other models. We all know how rabid fans of the Glock or the 1911 can be. I am not saying that people who shoot those are wrong. I am saying that those handguns are wrong for me. They may be right for you. At least let articles like this get you to think about what you are carrying. If that means you get to buy another gun, is that such a bad idea?

A word about revolvers- I own a few. My little 5 shot model 642 in .38 special gets carried more often than any other. Still, 38special from a 1.88 inch barrel isn’t a great performer. The length is about the same as a compact auto, but Again, compromise. I also have a 4 inch barreled revolver in .357Mag. I don’t carry it as a defensive handgun because, frankly I think revolvers are suboptimal for defensive use- capacity is too low, and reload times are too long.

By Divemedic, ago

Keep the Faith

As I am writing this, it is Monday April 7, and the stock markets opened the morning by taking a beating, but before I even finished typing this post had reversed course. I have been saying, and I still believe, that this is a major buying opportunity. I pulled all of my money out of the stock market during last year’s election because I thought the fix was in.

Trump is trying to force two things-

  • He wants other countries to loosen tariffs on US goods, so American made products can be sold in other countries
  • He wants to make it more cost effective for goods to be made in America

US workers are some of the most productive in the world, but thanks to government regulations like the EPA, OSHA, Obamacare, and other regulatory cost burdens, along with the crushing tariffs that American products face overseas, it is impossible for goods manufactured in America to compete. Trump is trying to change that. That change won’t happen without some blood, sweat, and tears.

That’s where the buying opportunity comes in. Buying while the market is down is the way to go. History shows that market downturns pay off. When the COVID market crash happened, we bought Royal Caribbean (RCL) at $32 a share and sold less than a year later at $112 a share- that is a 350% return.

This time around, I am buying SPY (an S&P 500 index fund), and TSLA (Tesla). We bought 50 shares of Tesla at 240. We are down for now, but I think it will rebound by the end of the year.

Keep the faith. Things in the short term will hurt a little, but you don’t lose money until you sell.

By Divemedic, ago

Tickets are Racist

California has decided that “traditional enforcement methods have had a well-documented disparate impact on communities of color, and implicit or explicit racial bias in police traffic stops puts drivers of color at risk” therefore, traffic tickets are racist.

To correct this, tickets will come with fines that are adjusted based upon the driver’s income level. How this passes through the equal protection clause, I don’t know.

By Divemedic, ago