[Blindmath] Math Accessibility petition text, any ideas/suggstions?

[Birkir R. Gunnarsson]

Hey folks

Following up on our discussion last week I wanted to gage your ideas
for a text you feel justified and righteous about signing with regards
to better math accessibility through your favorite screen reading
software.
Once we have a text we are happy with the petition can be created,
either with help of my good colleague Tim, who did the WayFinder
petition or, if he is too busy, I used a site called
www.thepetitionsite.com.
I am not sure if creating a petition there is accessible (I can get
sighted help) but signing it was no problem (the only accessibility
issue was that the sign/submit button has no label, but it is the only
button on the page, also error messages are not displayed, I left a
field blank to test this).
They also ask for address and email and try to trick you into
automatically participate in another survey for a "good cause", but
unchecking the chex box before submitting takes care of that.

So, what about a potential text?
I can start by suggesting (and this is not partiularely great but it is a start)

"Though screen reading has come a long way in many ways, such as
online functionality and compatibility with the latest and greatest
entertainment programs, there has been precious little development
with regards to math accessibility in recent years.
Better accessibility to mathematical information such as formulas and
equations, via speech or refreshable braille, can often mean the
difference between success and failure for those who want to study
math and use it as part of their careers.
A lot of academic studies have been conducted to research better
accessibility to mathematics, but , for the most part, the results
have failed to make their way into any of the major screen readers.
With a wider adoption of standards such as MathML for web pages and
other electronic documents, we now have an opportunity to access math
in new and reliable ways, but it is up to the screen reading software
we use to interpret such information and relay it to us in a reliable
and consistent manner.
Therefore, we hereby express our interest and hope that your screen
reading company will take a closer look at the needs of professionals
who rely on being able to use mathematics in their daily lives. Your
math accessibility features will definitely strongly influence our
purchasing decissions with regards to Assistive Technology in future.
"

Feel free to alter this text or suggest an entirely new text to
replace it, but definitely I hope you participate and we can create
something together.
Thanks and be well
-Birkir