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NYS EDUCATORS AND LAWYERS!! I have a question about NY school law
Cross-posted from GDNYS 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?
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 at 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?
A Day in the Life of The Negro (according to Cliven bundy)
Fri Apr 25, 2014 at 06:17 AM PDT
A Day in the Life of The Negro (according to Cliven bundy)
by GenXangster
"I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.
“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
"That’s exactly what I said. I said I’m wondering if they’re better off under government subsidy, and their young women are having the abortions and their young men are in jail, and their older women and their children are standing, sitting out on the cement porch without nothing to do, you know, I’m wondering: Are they happier now under this government subsidy system than they were when they were slaves, and they was able to have their family structure together, and the chickens and garden, and the people had something to do? And so, in my mind I’m wondering, are they better off being slaves, in that sense, or better off being slaves to the United States government, in the sense of the subsidies. I’m wondering. That’s what. And the statement was right. I am wondering.”
Just this morning while I was sitting on the government house porch, my son came and sat down next to me. Since we both had nothing to do, a long tense silence passed between us. I knew he had something to say so I patiently waited for him to speak his mind. You have a lot of time to do that when you have nothing to do but sit on a government house porch. After a while, he finally spoke;
"I know I survived the abortion and everything and I'm lucky to be alive but can you not put me in jail this summer? I'd rather just pick some cotton for free for white people if it's alright."
I must have looked confused because he continued;
"Look, mother, I don't know how black mothers got the power to control the justice system and put their sons in jail but this has to stop! All I want is backbreaking labor to do and I want to do it for free! Why can't you understand?"
I shook my head and turned to him;
"We already talked about this. You're not picking cotton. You're going to jail and I don't wanna hear another word about it. Your cousin Leo is expecting you."
My son dropped his shoulders and sulked.
"Never have nothing to do but be put in jail by my own mother and sit on a porch..." he mumbled.
Before I had a chance to answer, my do-nothing daughter walked out of the open door and sat with us. I knew what she was on before she even started.
"Look, young girl, I already told you, I don't have nothing for you to do. Stop bugging me and sit on this porch!"
I try not to look at her too much because it freaks me out. She's actually a ghost because she was aborted. She doesn't even exist. Why should it matter that she has nothing to do? Crazy kids.
I turned my thoughts back to my government subsidy check. Where's that damn mailman? He's always late. I won't be able to send my son to jail on time or pay for my next abortion. Goddammit.
There has to be a better way.
I thought about what my son said and I thought back to the old days when my ancestors had all the cotton in the world to pick. Fields and fields of fluffy white salvation. How lucky they were to have calloused hands, broken backs and chicken gardens and a family that never had to be split up because of abortion and jail. Instead, their kids were sold away to the deep south and given glorious unpaid, hardcore, life-shortening labor to do. I imagined them all happily boarding mule wagons and cages pulled by horses, waving goodbye to their proud parents for the last time, on their way to the land of cotton. Look away, Dixie, look away!
Oh how I wish I was in the land of cotton. Maybe my son is right. It certainly seemed a better option than me sending him off to jail all the time. And perhaps my daughter would have a real body instead of being an aborted ghost. And to confirm her living body, she would have lovely raised scars on her back in the shape of an oak tree from being whipped for not working hard enough. Lazy ass ghost daughter. That would teach her some manners!
And she would have something to do! She could wear a flour sack and scrub white women's floors for free. Perhaps she could even bear some children at the tender age of 14 instead of haunting me all day. She wouldn't be able to abort any of her children and they'd all be happily singing together in the cotton fields and chicken gardens.
And both my children would be happily illiterate. They hate going to school and learning things anyway. Going to school is the very definition of having nothing to do. Completely useless. No opportunities to wear out their bodies working for the benefit of white people. Just sitting there at a desk. Like this porch. Nothing to do. Ever.
Who needs food stamps! My ancestors were fine chefs. They were thrown scraps of meat that a dog wouldn't even eat by generous white people who were in no way mindful that a working person with so much to do needed better food. My people turned inedible offal into culinary masterpieces full of salt, fat and cholesterol because they had no choices. Food stamps that pay for fresh produce and all that crap are a waste when The Negro is better of sharpening his skills cultivating a diet that would be handed down to the next generations as a legacy of WTF-why-are-we-dying-from-heart-attacks-at-age-42. Now we can just go to the store and substitute ham hocks for turkey wings or eat salads like lazy people. Where's the skill in that? That's not enough to do! Who are we kidding?
And did you even know that only The Negro is getting these cushy subsidies? Not one white person has ever been on government assistance of any sort. There are jobs flowing like milk and honey around here but white liberals would rather give The Negro food stamps and checks from mysterious sources. They just like giving shit away. Nobody's ever hungry in America! Not even poor white folks.
Ah, but back in the day food never went to waste. Eyeballs, intestines and hog testicles! Yummy!
What about The Negro who has a job and no porch to sit on, you say? Those are urban legends. Not one Negro ever had a job since slavery. All their muscles are in various states of atrophy from sitting on porches all day for the past 150 years. They literally can't move their own arms anymore. I'm writing this by pounding my face on the keyboard. Without cotton picking to do, my body is useless. How sad. Everyday I cry and hope some white person will come along and give me something to do and not pay me for it. I could have had six-pack abs by now instead of being this Wall-E styled blob of a human with no muscle mass to speak of.
Oh well, it's a nice dream. In the meantime, I'll just sit here and wait on my white guilt subsidy check from some mysterious liberal source (maybe George Soros?) and wait for white people to drive past here and shake their heads disapprovingly at me having nothing to do.
Maybe they'll feel sorry for me and put me back in slavery if I sit here long enough. Surely, those wise white folks know just one more thing about The Negro that white liberals have yet to learn. Until then, I'll pine for the freedom my ancestors used to have as unpaid laborers and be bitter towards white liberals and the Union Army. White liberals need to mind their own business instead of marching into the south with their uppity ideas that I should be "free" and left on a porch to do nothing all day. Who even asked them?
(Thanks for reading. If it seems a little all-over-the-place, it's because I had a hard time reconciling the illogical racist statements of Cliven Bundy with a scenario that was satirical enough to illustrate it. His statements are contradictory so it's hard to follow and satirize his line of "logic" without being contradictory myself. In other words, this guy is so absurd, it's hard to satirize what he says because it's already unintentionally satirical. Like Tina Fey being at a loss for how to make fun of Sarah Palin and simply electing to state her words verbatim which is much funnier. Something like that. I'm still confused. lol)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/25/1294561/-A-Day-in-the-Life-of-The-Negro-according-to-Cliven-bund
Tom Tomorrow: Rancher Bundy
Mon Apr 21, 2014 at 07:00 AM PDT
Cartoon: Rancher Bundy
by Tom Tomorrow Follow
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/21/1293202/-Cartoon-Rancher-Bundy
293 Missing After Ferry Sinks off South Korea's Coast
293 Missing After Ferry Sinks off South Korea's CoastSEOUL, South Korea April 16, 2014
Nearly 300 people are missing and at least two are confirmed dead after a ferry carrying 459 people, many of them students, sank in cold waters off South Korea’s southern coast Wednesday.
There were fears of a big jump in the number of deaths, as dozens of boats, helicopters and divers scrambled to rescue passengers who had been on the ferry travelling to the southern island of Jeju. One rescued passenger said he believed that many people had been trapped inside the ferry when it sank.
The confirmed fatalities are a female crew member, 22, and a male student.
The ferry, identified as the Sewol, was sailing to the southern island of Jeju when it sent a distress call as it began leaning to one side. The passengers include more than 300 students from Danwon High School in Ansan, near Seoul, who were on a school trip...
WITH VIDEO: http://abcnews.go.com/International/dead-ferry-sinks-off-south-koreas-coast/story?id=23339906
Video: Howard Dean Rips Income Inequality, Koch Brothers, "Small People" on Supreme Court"
Wed Apr 16, 2014 at 03:25 AM PDT
Video: Howard Dean Rips Income Inequality, Koch Brothers, "Small People" on Supreme Court"
by lowkellFollow
Really gets going around around 6:40.
Former Governor and DNC Chair Howard Dean spoke in front of about 200 people last night in Arlington, Virginia, at an event supporting Don Beyer for Congress. After explaining why he supported Beyer, who was his presidential campaign treasurer, Dean turned to broader concerns on his mind, and he was really on a roll. Check it out.
*Income inequality is a threat to the entire American idea that you can work hard, play by the rules and make something of yourself and give your kids a better life. "If 80% of the people haven't had a raise for 20 years because of the machinations of Congress and politicians and failed institutions like Wall Street. If 80% of the people believe - and they're starting to believe - that you could play by the rules and the deck is fixed against you, then America dies, because the core of the American dream is the possibility - not that being rich is bad, we don't believe that - but the core of the American dream is that some day we can be like that if we work hard enough and if we listen to what our parents have to say and if our values are right. So what is being destroyed by the Koch brothers and others is not simply campaign finance and skullduggery in politics, what's being destroyed is the core of who we are as Americans. And that core means that it is the individual vote that matters, not how much money you have. That was what the Supreme Court destroyed in McCutcheon..."
*"We are plagued by a whole group of people in Congress that have put their party above the interests of their country. When you are willing to shut down the government to prove a political point and harm the credit rating of the United States of America. When you believe that the way to win is to have less [sic] people vote, then you would be more comfortable with Ukrainian politics than with American politics. Seriously, if you are part of an effort to restrict people's rights to vote in the United States of America, then democracy is not a value that you espouse...We need to support our democracy, which means we need people like Don Beyer and not people like - it's such a long list - Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, the House of Delegates in this state, which made it harder for ordinary people to vote. These folks ought not to be in politics, because they have not valued the core of democracy...it's not ok to win by taking away people's right to vote...and have the Supreme Court of the United States of America - Earl Warren must be turning over in his grave - and these are small people on this court; they may be smart, but they are small, tiny human beings with wizened souls, and we are going to replace them when we get the third Democratic president in a row."
*"This is a great nation, what the hell happened to Congress?"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/16/1292420/-Video-Howard-Dean-Rips-Income-Inequality-Koch-Brothers-Small-People-on-Supreme-Court
ACA Success - The New Yorker cover nails it!
April 7, 2014
Cover Story: Barry Blitt’s “The Best Medicine”
Posted by Francoise Mouly
“This whole enterprise was just an elaborate excuse,” says Barry Blitt about his cover for this week’s issue. “I enjoyed drawing Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann as petulant children—and I especially wanted to draw an open-mouthed Mitch McConnell being spoon-fed his meds.”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/04/cover-story-barry-blitt-the-best-medicine.html
BOROWITZ: Issa Subpoenas Seven Million Americans Who Signed Up for Obamacare
Issa Subpoenas Seven Million Americans Who Signed Up for ObamacarePosted by Andy Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Accusing them of involvement in “a widespread conspiracy to save President Obama’s failed health-care program,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) today subpoenaed the approximately seven million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare so far.
Arguing that the impressive enrollment numbers “don’t pass the smell test,” the House Oversight Committee chairman told reporters, “Any rational person would come to the same conclusion that I have: namely, that this is a well-orchestrated conspiracy of seven million people trying to make Obamacare look good.”
The California Republican said that the seven million co-conspirators targeted by his subpoenas would be required to travel to Washington to testify before his committee or risk being found in contempt of Congress.
“If you signed up for Obamacare, you have a lot of explaining to do,” he said.
In announcing the subpoenas, Rep. Issa indicated that his committee could begin grilling the seven million Obamacare enrollees as early as next week. “If my suspicions are correct, this could be bigger than Benghazi,” he said.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/04/issa-subpoenas-seven-million-americans-who-signed-up-for-obamacare.html
FBI: Pilot landing in NYC injured by green laser
FBI: Pilot landing in NYC injured by green laserNEW YORK — The FBI is searching for someone who flashed a green laser at least twice into the cockpit of a Delta plane landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport, injuring the pilot.
New York Assistant Director George Venizelos says Friday a $10,000 reward is available for information leading to the arrest of whoever shined the laser beam into Delta Flight 1102 just before 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Venizelos says the laser caused flash blindness and severely disrupted the vision of one of the plane's two pilots. He says agents believe the laser originated from somewhere along Queens Boulevard in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens.
The plane, traveling from Atlanta, Ga., landed safely.
http://online.wsj.com/article/APb16416fd881a47e7b4abd6716050ac43.html
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