[Ncabs] AFB Policy update

[Alan A. Chase]

Last year, on June 27, the Anniversary of Helen Keller's birth, a
remarkable event took place. On that day, hundreds upon hundreds of
phone calls, emails, and text messages came from all across America
from parents, professionals, and people with disabilities; they came
to the U.S. Congress with one simple call: Our special education
system's promise of a truly appropriate education for students who are
blind or visually impaired, and students who are deaf or hard of
hearing, can only be kept if we commit now to meeting each of our
students' unique learning needs.

Today, as a direct result of your call to Congress, the most
comprehensive legislation to enhance and reform America's special
education system for students with vision loss and students with
hearing loss has been introduced. H.R. 4040, the Alice Cogswell and
Anne Sullivan Macy Act, once enacted, will ensure that: every child
who is deaf and every child who is blind, regardless of whether they
have additional disabilities, will be properly counted and served;
each of a child's unique learning needs will be properly evaluated;
states will engage in strategic planning to be sure that they can in
fact meet each child's specialized needs; the U.S. Department of
Education will do its part to hold states and schools accountable;
students who are deaf will be served by qualified personnel; and
students who are blind will receive state-of-the-art services and
skills supported through a new major national collaborative initiative
addressing their unique learning needs.

Introduced by Reps. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Mark Takano (D-CA), and
Steve Stockman (R-TX), H.R. 4040 combines into one bill two pieces of
formally draft-only legislation, the Anne Sullivan Macy Act, named for
Helen Keller's beloved teacher and advocated by a broad coalition of
national, regional and community-based organizations representing
vision loss, and the Alice Cogswell Act, named for the first deaf girl
to be educated in a school for the deaf in the United States and
advocated by America's leading deafness and hard of hearing
organizational voices.

Advocates are urged to contact your member of the U.S. House of
Representatives to ask them to cosponsor H.R. 4040 today! Tell them
that by doing so, they will be helping to make history by ensuring
that America's special education system is worthy of the enormous
potential of every child who is blind, visually impaired, deaf, or
hard of hearing. Tell them that by joining in this campaign, they will
help us transform a nearly-forty-year-old system from one that has
indeed broken down barriers to the school house door to a system that
finally ensures that blind or deaf kids will get the education they
deserve once they get inside. We've waited forty years; we're not
waiting another forty; pass H.R. 4040!

Advocates should stay tuned to this newsletter and to
www.AFB.org/MacyAct for more information and regular updates as the
Cogswell/Macy Act progresses. Thank you for your advocacy for children
and youth with sensory disabilities!

-- 
Alan A. Chase, M.Ed.
Exceptional Children Program Facilitator, Durham Public Schools
Program Coordinator, Envisioning Youth Empowerment Retreat
President, North Carolina Association of Blind Students
Secretary, Governor Morehead School Alumni Association