[nabs-l] is there any place for schools for the blind?

[Jorge Paez]

Hi everyone.
So, today I was thinking about a rather interesting question which
came to my mind, and which I've thought about numerous times before,
that being, the place for schools for the blind in today's society.
A few years ago, there was a huge news story that broke in New York
about protesters going to Lavel and NYISE (New York Institute for
Special Ed) to speak out in support of the 2 schools, which then
Governor Quomo I believe it was wanted to cut from the state budget
and close.
And that left me wondering,
as someone who spent most of his elementary years at the NYISE, and
the rest of my term in regular public school, finishing 4th and 5th
grade at a local school and going on to do my entire post-secondary
education in public schools, what exactly did I think?
And to be honest, I don't quite have an answer myself.
I started 4th grade with the Braille Lite and APH's Braille & Speak,
so obviously this is quite a while back.
But I remember in those early years I was shocked at all this tech
that I just was not allowed to use in the school for the blind.
Yet the lite had its problems, as anyone who's used one probably
knows. For one thing, mine kept crashing every 4 to 7 weeks on a
constant schedule and promptly deleting my entire file system. Not
good, to say the least.
But technology has obviously progressed a lot since then, wih the
Braille Note Apex being extremely stable and solid. I've never had a
Braille Note crash, at least never as badly as what used to happen
with the braille lites.
And now with the advance of technology some argue, and I share this
point, that within a few years all we'll really need are braille
displays.
I mean we have JAWS, System Access, Window Eyes, NVDA, Dolfin, and
Super Nova for Windows--Winow Eyes and NVDA are both now free, System
Access now extremely affordable, for about $250 with a package that
gives you way more then just a screenreader, and most if not all have
braille display support built in.
And with VoiceOver on the Mac and accessible versions of other
platforms such as Linux there is no system that is not accessible, and
if there is such a system, there are now ways which are widely known
to make them accessible.
Granted we still have the applications within those systems (Google
apps for example) which can still present challenges but that's just a
piece of what has become a mostly accessible digital ecosystem.
So, where do you think, if anywhere, do schools for the blind fit?
Note that this isn't a chriticism of schools for the blind--I studied
at one, like I said, and they did have their advantages at the time
and perhaps still have in certain circumstances,
but given that they were chiefly in existence to provide an education
to the blind, an education that is now for the most part accessible to
us outside of those limits, do we need schools for the blind anymore?
I myself don't have a position one way or another, so I'm very
interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic.



-- 
Jorge A. Paez

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jorgeapaez11994