NYS EDUCATORS AND LAWYERS!! I have a question about NY school law

[FourScore]

Cross-posted from GD

NYS EDUCATORS AND LAWYERS!! I have a question about NY school law
I want to opt my child out of the mandatory ELA testing. There is good reason. He has a disorder that makes this sort of testing nearly impossible. He always scores on the very bottom of the range. He has anxiety around these tests, and there is no need to put him through it. A teacher I know told me I can legally opt him out.

I asked the school principal. This was his response: Each NYS school is allowed to have 5% of their student body not take the test. Because I live in a college town, that 5% is already taken by kids who are on extended leave while their parents are on sabbatical. Any person above that 5% threshold who opts out, will not count when it comes to state funding for the school. In other words, it's as if that child doesn't go to the school. He told me the NYS legislature has just passed this law in order to discourage parents from opting out of the mandated tests. If they opt out, they cost their school an entire year of funding for that child.

How can they do this? How is this legal? How can they take my tax dollars, yet not pay for my child if I opt out of a test they have no legal right to force him to take? I'm seriously considering taking on a lawsuit here.

Anyone have insight or knowledge they can share in this area?

[Squinch]

1. Opt out anyway. You have good reason. There is no reason for your child to take the test, and

it sounds like it would be detrimental to your child. The attachment of funding to testing is artificial, and is for the benefit of the testing companies and not the children. If more people opt out, that attachment will have to be severed. That needs to happen.

You will probably be hounded by the school. Do it anyway. They cannot make you make your child take the test.

Also, that school board is begging for a lawsuit: the "opt out" seats are taken??? Are you kidding me? So now your kid can't? Ridiculous.

[femmocrat]

2. If you decide not to opt out, you can try to get special accomodations for him.

Maybe he can test in a small group or one-on-one with a teacher/proctor. We do it all the time.

I proctored our state standardized tests for six days in March. I felt terrible for those children. I think it's cruel and unusual punishment, no matter how we try to make it "fun" for them with parties and rewards.

[FourScore]

3. He already has a 504 with special accommodations.

It's not fair to make him take this test, and I don't even know why the school would want him to. His results would unfairly skew the data.