AccessAbility

STIC would like to gratefully
acknowledge the recent gifts from:

Greater Broome
Community Foundation's William H. & Audree F. Rincker Fund

Conrad & Virginia Klee Foundation

Broome County Community Charities

Here's an updated list of our talented staff, their jobs, and their voice-mail extensions. Go get 'em!

Administration

318 Maria Dibble, Executive Director
320 Frank Pennisi, Program Services Coordinator

Accessibility and Technology Services

329 Darlene Dickinson, Access Consultant/TRAID Coordinator

Blind Mentor Services

321 Terry Northup, Blind Mentor Coordinator

Deaf Services

311 Pat Charma, Deaf Services Coordinator (TTY)

Interpreter Services

338 Carrie Watkins-Smith, Interpreter Services Coordinator

Peer Counselors

323 Susan Link, Peer Counselor
325 Danny Cullen, BHA Peer Counselor
350 Joy Earthdancer, Peer Counselor/CDPA Coordinator

Person-Centered Planning & Self Determination

336 Dawn Stone, Person Centered Planning Outreach Coordinator

Professional Counseling

309 Charlie Kramer, Psychotherapist

Service Coordinators

326 Jo Anne Novicky, Community Services Coordinator
313 Tammy Eaves, Service Coordinator
322 Mary Ellen Kelleher, Service Coordinator

Supported Employment

333 Sue Ruff, Supported Employment Coordinator
332 Carole Kramer, Employment Specialist

Transition Services

352 Julie Epply, Transition Services Coordinator
351 Qassem Al-Nadi, Transition Peer Counselor
348 Julio Duran, Transition Peer Counselor
349 Jennifer Hitchcock-Ayala, J.C. Community Support Specialist

Volunteer Services

307 Laura Nuccio, Volunteer Coordinator/Chenango Cty. Outreach

Come and learn a new exciting language: ASL
(American Sign Language)

When:
April 10th and April 24th
May 8th and May 22nd
June 12th and June 26th

Where:
STIC
24 Prospect Ave.
Binghamton, NY 13901
4th Floor

Time:
1:00 - 2:30 pm

Fee:
Free for paid STIC members
Non-members - $25.00

This class is a basic introduction to ASL.
We can only accept 20 students.
First come, first serve.

Contact: Susan Link, Mon - Fri, 9 am - 5 pm, 724-2111

President - Mary Beth Gamba
Vice President - *Milrene Smith
Secretary - Beverly Rainforth
Treasurer - *Linda Giese
*Michelle Cali
*Linda Greeno
*Edie Marie Lind
Elsie Logan
*Michael May
Kathy Sas
*Joe Walsh

* designates person with a disability

Hello, my name is Carole Kramer. I joined the staff as Employment Specialist with STIC's Job Connections supported employment program on January 10, 2000. I did some job coaching prior to that and found the work interesting, and I like working directly with people and helping them along in life's adventures.

I took advantage of an early retirement incentive and retired from Broome County Social Services last September. My twenty some years with Social Services gave me much experience helping consumers dealing with assistance programs. The last ten years I was a Principal Examiner in the non-public assistance Food Stamp Unit. I supervised fourteen staff and made every effort to help consumers be eligible for Food Stamps within the Federal Guidelines.

I have a BA degree from Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY. I live in the Town of Union. I have two sons who are in their twenties.

Yes, STIC's Professional Counselor, Charlie Kramer, is one of my five siblings.

I look forward to working with and for you.

Governor Pataki seems to have realized that his chances of being President, or even Vice President, are nil. He'll be here in NY for the foreseeable future, where right-wing posturing just doesn't make it. As a result, his 2000-01 budget has lots of new money for disability services, and avoids the harsh attempted Medicaid cuts of previous years.

That doesn't mean the budget is a model of inclusive community-based disability rights. It is not. It may mean he'll be more receptive to changes than in past years. He may even get out of the way of the Medicaid Buy-In (see Disability Action Agenda 2000), since it won't cost any additional Medicaid service dollars, and he no longer has to worry about the national implications of appearing to be "Medicaid-friendly." However, given his ongoing personality conflicts with Legislative leaders (this year, it seems, he's feuding with his own Republican Senate Majority Leader), it's at least as likely that the whole thing will end in another veto disaster. At this early stage, it's anybody's guess. What we don't have to guess at are the facts:

Independent Living

The Governor has once again proposed level funding for Centers for Independent Living like STIC. Fortunately, the "level" is still where last year's budget battle left it, $1.5 million higher than the old level.

Supported Employment

The Governor's view of supported employment continues to be backward. That is, he proposes to provide "extended" services to another 1200 people with developmental disabilities served by OMRDD. These are services used by people who have already been placed and trained in jobs. Unfortunately, he has again refused to increase funds for the VESID "intensive" services that place and train those people. Who does he think will use the "extended" services? Speculation is that he stints on VESID funding simply because VESID is under the Department of Education, which is controlled by the Board of Regents instead of by him, which makes him mad.

NYS CARES

The second year of this 5-year plan to eliminate the waiting list for OMRDD residential services will be fully funded. It addresses a very real need for adults with developmental disabilities whose aging parents are losing the ability to care for them. People can "choose" the residential supports they want. But, because for many the need is extremely urgent and it's easier and faster to mass-produce group homes than it is to tailor individual integrated living supports, the only real choice most people get is A) take the group home or B) risk being homeless or being shipped across (or out of) the state to some other relative, or up to the developmental center to "await an opening."

Other Services for People with Developmental Disabilities

Long-delayed, very welcome cost of living increases (in OMRDD's obscure language, "trend factors") of over 5% would go to many programs that provide both congregate and integrated residential and day services and supports. The budget doesn't appear to have new funds to enroll more people who aren't on the NYS CARES waiting list in OMRDD's most individualized, integrated programs, the Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Waiver or Individual Support Services (ISS). OMRDD would build new group homes for 284 more people who are either leaving developmental centers or "aging out" of school, instead of offering them individualized integrated living, in addition to all the homes being built for NYS CARES. OMRDD would continue to expand programs to lock up people who are alleged to need "secure" services in special institutions, including some who are now in developmental centers and whose transfers would apparently be counted as "institutional downsizing."

Services for People with Mental Disabilities

This is the big news this year. Pataki has proposed $125 million in new mental health services. $52 million would go to case management and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams. Advocates fear most of this will be funneled into forced treatment under "Kendra's Law" instead of into proven effective voluntary approaches. $20 million would go to about 2,000 supported housing units. Depending on how providers treat their tenants, this could be good or bad, but homelessness is truly a major concern for people with mental illness and the unavailability of affordable housing and supports is the main reason. Still, it's not necessarily integrated housing. Much of the rest of the money would serve children, through family support and HCBS Waiver services. There are also big chunks to beef up OMH's oversight bureaucracy and institutional services. Downsizing of psych centers is put off for at least another year.

While this is the best mental health proposal to come down the pike during Pataki's tenure, with considerable potential for positive benefit, the devil is in the details, and advocates are especially disappointed that there is no assurance that peer-run support programs will get any of these funds.

by Ken Dibble

The NY State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped recently issued a report entitled "A Review of New York's Service Delivery to Individuals Who Are Visually Impaired" and requested comments on it. It contains two good ideas and one questionable one. It also claims credit for dubious achievement, and doesn't address one of CBVH's worst problems.

The two good ideas are: CBVH supports the Blind Persons' Literacy Act. And, CBVH would like to change its name, either to "Commission for the Blind" if it continues to serve only "legally blind" people, or to "Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired" if it expands to serve people with less severe visual disabilities.

Here's the questionable idea: CBVH wants to expand services to include people with visual impairments who aren't "legally blind", if additional funds are appropriated to do so. Right now, lots of people whose visual disabilities substantially limit their ability to learn or work without assistive technology or other supports don't meet the definition of "legally blind", and if their conditions aren't deteriorating rapidly, they can't get any vocational rehabilitation services at all. Something really needs to be done about that. CBVH's proposal is questionable because if nothing else changes, it could mean that thousands more people with visual disabilities will be funneled to CBVH's vocational service providers, most of which are sheltered workshops with very low real job placement rates. CBVH repeatedly refuses to hire people with visual disabilities for important management positions or involve them in meaningful ways in policy development, and providing a lot of new money to expand this able-ist agency culture would be a mistake. VESID would be a better choice to provide this service.

The dubious achievement is that CBVH has raised its job placement rate from .3% to .5% over the last two years. Only half of one percent of the people it serves get placed in jobs in any given year. Even if part of the reason is that CBVH serves a lot of elderly people, this is nothing to crow about. It is far below VESID's job placement rate, and it reflects CBVH's massive reliance on sheltered workshops.

And here's the problem they left out: CBVH's technology program wastes huge amounts of money to provide outdated, overpriced, unsuitable computer equipment to consumers, which it buys out-of-state. CBVH pays several agencies to assess consumers' computer skills and equipment needs and make hardware and software recommendations. This assessment is mandatory, and doesn't consider consumer preferences, even if they are experienced computer users. Then CBVH routinely ignores the assessment as well as the consumer's input, and gives everyone the same hardware and software. The software that makes CBVH computers talk is complex; users must be very knowledgeable to make it work. Since CBVH rarely trains consumers adequately once they get the computers, they often can't use them. There is a more user-friendly program, but CBVH seldom provides it even if the assessment recommends it. Because CBVH buys everything through a multi-year contract with a Rhode Island company, it typically pays 2-3 times current market value for equipment that is 1-2 years out of date.

CBVH's report is a limited, unaccustomed effort to assess and respond to consumer demand, and it shows. They need to go back to the drawing board.

ADOPT THE MEDICAID BUY-IN PROGRAM

The Medicaid Buy-In is an optional Medicaid program, first made available to the states in 1997. It was expanded by the federal Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. It enables people with disabilities who want to work to "buy in" to Medicaid on a sliding scale when their income exceeds Medicaid eligibility limits.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?

Description of chart--`Medicaid Buy-In'

People with disabilities want to work but can't take well-paid jobs without losing Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is the ONLY medical insurance, public or private, that provides unlimited, lifelong coverage for medical equipment and supplies, prescription drugs, and personal attendants. A lower-middle-class income won't pay for a $10,000 power wheelchair (which must be replaced every 3-5 years), $1,000/month in prescriptions, or $13,520/year for attendant services (based on 40 hours/week at $6.50/hour, the least one can expect to pay a minimally-qualified attendant in upstate NY). Even the best employer health insurance puts lifetime limits on coverage that people with severe disabilities would exhaust within a few years, and often doesn't pay for attendants at all.

WON'T THIS INCREASE NY'S MEDICAID COSTS?

Governor Pataki refused to adopt the program in 1997, citing costs. However, the Medicaid Buy-In can actually pay for itself, when all costs are considered:

• New York already pays Medicaid costs for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who aren't working, or who don't earn enough to affect their Medicaid eligibility-or pay income taxes.
  
  
• The program is a BUY-IN, NOT a "give-away". For people whose incomes exceed the standard Medicaid threshold, it works just like any other medical insurance. Participants pay a premium in return for coverage, on a sliding scale up to 7.5% of their annual income.
  
  
• People with disabilities who earn up to 450% of the federal poverty level while keeping Medicaid will pay state income taxes and use fewer public benefits. The US Census Bureau estimates that there are about 1.24 million working-age New Yorkers with disabilities. 70%, or 868,000, of them aren't working, according to the last Harris Poll. If each one earns the average annual salary for people with disabilities in integrated jobs cited by NY State's latest Annual Status Report on Integrated Employment--$289/week--they'll pay annual NYS income taxes of over $286 million on total annual income of over $13 billion, pay up to $975 million in premiums, and reduce government benefits costs by $1.6 billion. This will make some $2.4 billion available annually to pay for the Buy-In (see chart, left).
  
  
• Over several years, many people with disabilities will gain work experience and move into jobs that pay above 450% of poverty level, where they'll be able to pay some medical costs out-of-pocket and use employer-provided insurance for the rest. They will drop Medicaid entirely. But they can't do this without the work experience that the Medicaid Buy-In will make possible.
  
  
• The Work Incentives Improvement Act makes available additional Medicaid funds that states can use over five years to cushion the initial costs of offering the Buy-In.

COMPLY WITH THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT

• Pass legislation to require all state disability service agencies to develop coordinated plans and timetables to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirement that people with disabilities be served in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, as confirmed by the US Supreme Court and Department of Health and Human Services.

Description of chart--Options for Living Supports

Ten years after passage of the ADA, New York State still has thousands of people with disabilities in institutions, nursing homes, sheltered workshops, and segregated school programs that are far more restrictive than necessary to meet their needs. The recent Supreme Court LC v Olmstead decision and Department of Health and Human Services policy statements have made it clear that this is illegal discrimination. States must have a real, functioning plan to ensure that every person with a disability who desires it can receive necessary medical and support services in the most integrated living, working, and learning environments possible, with all deliberate speed. States that do not have such a plan are out of compliance and face a growing risk of potentially expensive and disruptive lawsuits.

Such a plan will cut government spending because integrated community-based supports are, on average, much less expensive than restrictive, segregated programs. It will increase government revenue because people who live in their own homes with the support they need to travel in their communities are more likely to get jobs, pay taxes and contribute to the economy. It is the right thing to do. And it is the law!

INCREASE JOB PLACEMENT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

• Provide $8 million in additional funding for VESID supported employment services in 2000-01.

This proposal is supported by VESID, the NYS Rehabilitation Advisory Council, the NYS chapter of the Association of Persons in Supported Employment, and by virtually every other vocational rehabilitation provider group in the state. It would put an additional 1,250 people with disabilities into integrated jobs at competitive wages in 2000-01, as the first step in a 3-year plan to place 5,000 people who have been identified as ready to leave sheltered workshops.

Supported employment costs less than any other "day" or vocational program in New York, and provides a measurable return on investment in the form of increased income tax revenues and decreased public benefits costs.

EDUCATE STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
FOR PRODUCTIVE, INTEGRATED LIVES

• Provide $2,625,000 to enable each of New York's 35 Centers for Independent Living (CILs) to implement School-to-Work Transition Services.
  
  
• Provide funding and authorization to enable students with disabilities aged 16 and older to receive supported employment and placement services for after-school and summer jobs.

RATIONALE:

CILs have proven their ability to: 1) get more high school graduates with disabilities into integrated homes and jobs; 2) cut the drop-out rate of students with disabilities by up to 50%; 3) reduce juvenile crime. Three CILs are in Year 2 of a VESID-funded pilot project to demonstrate Independent Living approaches to transition services. These projects have already achieved the above outcomes. Solid data indicate that the majority of youthful criminals have learning and/or emotional disabilities, and successful transition from school to work and integrated living substantially decreases the crime rate. Each CIL can operate such a transition program for $75,000 per year. This amount must be provided in addition to the cumulative cost-of-living increase requested by CILs. CILs can't commit COLA revenues to new services; they must recoup losses to existing programs that have resulted from ten years of continuous inflation (see Finish the Job...).

Students with disabilities need the same after-school and summer job experiences that nondisabled students have, at the same age. Successful school-to-work transition requires real hands-on work experience to give students with disabilities an understanding of working life, job aptitudes and options, and good work-related skills before entering the job market. School districts are required to provide transition services, but not enough funding is available, in most cases, for experiential training. Most transition programs consist of classroom "planning" and "practice", along with occasional "tours" of community worksites. Supported employment services could be made available to students aged 16 and above either by authorizing and funding VESID and CBVH to provide them, or by giving earmarked funds to school systems that they can use to purchase supported employment services directly from local providers.

RESTORE CONSUMER CHOICE TO MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

• Maintain current levels of funding for all community-based mental health programs; funds should not be siphoned off from these programs to support "assisted outpatient treatment".
  
  
• Direct 50%, or $26 million, of the new funds Governor Pataki has proposed for 2000-01 for case management services to peer-run self-help programs; at least one peer-run program should be funded in each county.
  
  
• Pass legislation to require parity in quality, frequency, duration, and expenditures between health insurance coverage for voluntary mental health services and coverage for physical health services.

RATIONALE:

So-called "assisted outpatient treatment" is really forced treatment of people with psychiatric diagnoses. The perceived need for this measure is due to the state's failure to adequately fund community-based supports to enable people to: 1) feel secure in adequate housing; 2) choose the most effective, least debilitating modern medications available; 3) do productive, meaningful, remunerative work; 4) have peer support in times of stress. Peer-run programs offer a variety of strategies and services to address these needs, and have a proven track record of reaching people who are reluctant to accept more traditional approaches. However, these programs are not available uniformly across the state. There is a danger that existing funds for such programs will be drawn off to support assisted outpatient treatment, a more-restrictive setting. Directing or redirecting funds to assisted outpatient treatment, when funds aren't available to provide less-restrictive services to all who need them, may violate the ADA "most integrated setting" mandate. Funds expended in a climate of coercion and disrespect for consumer choice certainly won't produce the level of benefit that using the same funds to expand proven, effective voluntary approaches would.

The federal insurance parity law has been a failure due to loopholes that let insurers pay lip-service to dollar parity while drastically limiting service types, frequency, and duration. The result is that few employer-offered insurance plans provide adequate coverage for voluntary mental health treatment. This makes it harder for people to return to work and reduce their dependence on government benefits.

CUT LONG-TERM CARE COSTS THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICES

• Provide $1.5 million to Centers for Independent Living (CILs) to assist people to leave expensive nursing homes and other institutions and move into their own homes and communities.
  
  
• Pass and ENFORCE legislation ensuring uniformity in long-term care services across the state, including availability of 24-hour homecare and/or safety monitoring, Consumer Directed Personal Assistance (CDPA) services, and substitution of needs-based assessment for task-based approaches.
  
  
• Oppose any effort to reinstate "fiscal assessment" as a Medicaid cost-control measure.
  
  
• Pass legislation authorizing the Department of Health to seek and implement a Medicaid waiver to support people with any disability of any age who wish to leave a nursing home and live in the community. This waiver should fund transition costs to set up a household, personal attendants and/or safety monitoring at home or in any work or community setting, and variable levels of consumer responsibility for services based on consumer preference.

RATIONALE:

On average, CILs expend about 10 staff hours per week to assist a person to leave excessively restrictive settings and/or remain in the most integrated setting. For about $43,000-less than the cost of one year in a nursing home for one person-each CIL could create a new full-time Community Re-integration position and move 4 people back into the community annually, or 140 people statewide. With each such person served saving the state, on average, $46,000 each year, $6.4 million could be saved in expenditures on restrictive programs. Deducting CIL costs produces $4.9 million in NET savings for disability services in New York State each year. Again, these funds must be provided in addition to the cumulative cost-of-living increase requested by CILs (see Finish the Job...).

Five years after its passage, several counties are openly defying the Legislature's requirement that they must offer Consumer Directed Personal Assistance (CDPA) services to any self-directing person eligible for Medicaid long-term care services. The law contains no enforcement mechanism, so New York State is still not realizing the full potential Medicaid savings that CDPA, by eliminating expensive administrative "middlemen" from the system, has produced in counties where it is available. Further savings would result from enabling people with Alzheimers disease or similar conditions to remain in their own homes with safety monitoring instead of being forced into nursing homes.

"Fiscal assessment" required anyone whose homecare costs equaled or exceeded 90% of that of the average nursing home to be confined to a nursing home. This is actually a cost-increasing measure, not only for people whose homecare costs are between 90% and 99% of a nursing home, but because most people with the most severe disabilities can be served at home for less than the real cost of the higher-level facilities they would be placed in, which can exceed 300% of the average cost.

The Department of Health wants a Medicaid waiver to transition people out of nursing homes, but its application for planning funds to develop a waiver was rejected by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. On average, homecare costs NY State 1/3 of annual institutional costs for persons with similar needs.

FINISH THE JOB OF ADEQUATELY FUNDING
CENTERS FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING

• Provide $1.5 million in remaining cumulative cost-of-living increases to CILs.
  
  
• Include CILs on the permanent list of programs that receive annual COLAs.

Description of chart--`Cost Comparison'

After nearly ten years without a cost-of-living increase, NY's 1999-2000 budget provided an additional $1.5 million for Centers for Independent Living (CILs). We're thankful to those who supported this welcome development. However, that amount was only half of what CILs needed to recoup losses from ten years of inflation. In today's tight labor market, many CILs continue to lose valuable, experienced personnel to better-paid jobs. Employee health benefit costs continue to rise, and many CILs are still unable to restore staff training budgets or update aging computer technology.

CILs assist people with disabilities to leave segregated or restrictive programs and live safely, productively, and independently in the most integrated settings possible. In doing so, they provide major savings to New York taxpayers. The average annual savings when CILs help people move from excessively restrictive settings to the most integrated environments-taking into account all public costs for supports provided in both segregated and integrated settings-is about $46,000 per person. Yet CILs still only have the capacity to serve about 4% of those who could benefit. Here are some recent examples:

• A CIL advocated in court for a woman who was facing commitment to a state hospital. She was released and returned to living independently in her own apartment with ongoing peer support services, at a cost of $500.
  Annual Savings: $137,000
  
  
• A CIL provided information and advocacy services to a family whose child was facing discharge from a Home and Community Based Waiver. Without waiver support, the child would be placed in an in-patient psychiatric unit. The parents successfully appealed the discharge. Assuming average annual Medicaid Waiver costs of about $40,000, plus CIL costs of $1,000:
  Annual Savings: $96,500
  
  
• Due to inefficiencies in local service systems and her own limited self-advocacy skills, a woman who left a nursing home was experiencing difficulties in obtaining suitable personal assistance and physical therapy services. She was in danger of being returned to the nursing home. CIL advocates provided ongoing advocacy and skills training, and helped her win a Fair Hearing and remain in her home with appropriate supports for a total cost to the CIL of $7,000. Assuming average annual homecare costs of $16,000:
  Annual Savings: $23,000

Description of chart--`Total Requested CIL Increases'

CILs are free-standing, locally-controlled, non-residential non-profit agencies that are governed and operated by people with disabilities. They assist people with all disabilities of all ages to be as independent as possible. They also help families, businesses, agencies, and governments to better meet the needs of people with disabilities. Centers provide a broad range of services, such as advocacy, peer counseling, life skills training, information/referral, benefits advisement, and architectural barrier, assistive technology, and housing assistance. Some Centers also provide sign language interpreters, supported employment, service coordination, personal assistants and more, depending on the needs of their communities.

The introduction of the Blind Persons' Literacy Rights and Education Act by both houses of the NY State Legislature is one of those rare examples of something done "just right." If passed, it will also achieve one of STIC's longest-standing advocacy goals. The bill (Assembly: A. 3606-A; Senate: S. 4515) does three very important things:

• It requires any child with a significant visual impairment to be taught braille in school unless his family agrees, in his Individual Education Plan, that it isn't necessary.
  
  
• It requires all textbook publishers who sell their products to the State of New York, or to any school district or college here, to make them available on computer disk in a form that can be translated into braille and printed on a braille printer.
  
  
• It requires anyone who wants to be licensed as a Teacher of the Visually Impaired to be proficient in braille.

You may wonder why such a law is needed. After all, cassette books, talking computers and reading machines let blind people access a lot of printed material fairly well. The problem is, it isn't reading. It's listening. Most people don't absorb as much information from listening as they do from reading. Blind kids who have to listen to everything tend to have lower "reading" comprehension than sighted kids. Also, you can't learn spelling that way. And you can't learn to write that way. Yes, blind children learn to type, but what if you need to use a calendar or look up a phone number? We have tiny, cheap computerized "organizers" for such information, but unlike full-fledged computers, they can't talk. They are useless to blind people. It's cumbersome and slow to use a computer every time you need a phone number or to check an appointment date. Even if you carry a notebook computer around with you, do you really want to set it up, turn it on, put on headphones and page through the calendar software to pick the next date for a meeting? Try doing it in a phone booth. It's not practical to rewind and fast-forward back and forth to find a number on a minicassette recorder, especially near a loud busy street or in freezing weather. And how do you know which disk or CD to put in your computer if you can't make or read braille labels? I have about 75 disks in my office. Imagine having to check each one to find a document.

The need for braille used to be obvious to schools. But now we hear, "With all these books on tape and talking computers, why bother?" The reason we hear that, of course, is money. It's cheaper to get cassette books on loan and have one or two talking computers and reading machines for all the blind kids in a school building, than it is to train and pay qualified braille instructors. It also denies blind children the most basic form of education: functional literacy.

This bill is also important because it sets a precedent that reverses the unequal treatment principle of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), against which STIC has campaigned for years. A nondisabled child gets the best education the school district can offer simply by walking into the school. But under IDEA, a child with a disability is only entitled to the best education his parents can negotiate from the district. School districts are skilled at such negotiations, and the typical parent is not. The result is almost always an inferior education for the disabled child. STIC has said for 15 years that there should be non-negotiable guarantees in IDEA. For example, all children with disabilities should automatically be placed and supported in regular classrooms, and only be moved out if actual good-faith efforts to teach them there fail. And, children who are physically unable to write should automatically get computers, deaf children should automatically get interpreters, and blind children should automatically get braille and mobility training.

The bill does cover some kids whose relatively mild visual impairments may make braille unnecessary. If so, the family can opt out of braille instruction. But it reverses the IDEA principle by making braille instruction automatic unless rejected by the family, instead of making families beg and plead for it. If this bill passes, education advocates who've supported IDEA's unequal treatment principle in the past may see the light, and more changes will be made.