[nfbmi-talk] victory for blind students

[joe harcz Comcast]

Access to information through every step of the educational process and indeed in other venues like say the VR programs is a civil right!

And a victory for one is a victory for all.

Thus I submit the following news story from New Jersely and not the National Federation of the Blind, not for the blind was involved in this suit.

Joe
James Kleimann/NJ.com . NEW MILFORD - A borough family has settled a federal lawsuit with an education consortium after it agreed to make practice tests

accessible to blind students starting in spring of 2014. Filed in late January by the parents of a blind 16-year-old New Milford High School student, the

lawsuit claimed that blind students did not have an equal or proper opportunity to practice tests as they prepared for required standardized assessments.

The lack of practice tests being made available represented a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, attorneys for plaintiff "S.H." wrote. Under

the settlement with consortium Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), PARCC will make tests available to blind students

by Spring of 2014. Hard-copy Braille practice tests and online versions with "refreshable Braille displays and text-to-speech screen reader software" will

be ready for blind students, according to the settlement. The education consortium, a non-profit founded in 2013 that includes 18 states, received a $186

million federal education grant to devise assessment tests for millions of students starting in 2015. None of the practice tests initially devised by the

consortium contained braille or the common screen-reader software, the lawsuit claimed. New Milford High School will be among the schools that participates

in a trial run of the test program , according to The Record. In a press release, Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation for the Blind,

lauded the settlement . "Blind students are far too often forced to wait for equal access to educational materials, and as a result end up lagging far

behind their sighted peers in academics," he said. "This important settlement will address that problem by ensuring that PARCC's assessments and practice

tests are accessible to blind students at the same time that they are deployed to all students.