Tuesday, September 9, 2014

ACE's Medieval Attitudes toward equality for the Blind



ACE's Medieval Attitudes toward equality for the Blind

by Dan Burke


Higher education has its roots in medieval times, and last week the American Council on Education (ACE) demonstrated its medieval attitudes about disability in a letter to Senator Tom Harkin and the HELP Committee regarding Harkin's pending Higher Education reauthorization Act. 
It's a paradox, of course, because colleges and universities have been moving rapidly to stay on the cutting edge of technology, especially electronic learning systems and textbooks.  The NFB, meanwhile, has been promoting the TEACH Act to ensure accessibility to electronic educational media and learning management systems.  Harkin has included language very close to the TEACH Act in his bill, And it was that language in Harkin's bill that drew ACE's medieval attitudes to the surface. 
The Technology, Education and Accessibility in College and Higher Education Act (S. 2060/H.R. 3505) has bipartisan support and is the result of a study commission provided for in the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.  Colorado’s Mike Coffman is a co-sponsor of the House bill and Michael Bennet cosponsors the Senate version.  TEACH establishes voluntary guidelines for accessible materials in higher education that colleges and universities must already provide under current law and, by adopting the guidelines, an institution protects itself from litigation.
Seem like a bad idea? Well, here's what ACE said:
Accessible Instructional Materials (Sec. 931): This provision creates an impossible to meet standard for institutions and will result in a significant chilling effect in the usage of new technology.
Such a proposal, if implemented, will seriously impede the development and adoption of accessible materials, harming the very students it is intended to assist.

Read National Federation of the Blind President Mark Riccobono's response September 3 to ACE's inexplicable stance:
The NFB is mobilizing across the country to counter ACE's circular logic on TEACH.

In researching for this blog post, I spent a bit of time on ACE's web site, and I was intrigued by this tidbit posted on ACE's home page, actually from its president:

New ACE Presidential Innovation Lab Paper Explores Students of the Future
American higher education institutions should develop strategies now to meet the changing needs of college students, which will shift over the next decade due to major changes in demographics, technology and learning styles 
That's a good thought, but from ACE's point of view, we might infer that the blind are not part of the demographic of the future.  It sure seems like they intend to leave us in the distant past ... medieval times

In my nearly twenty years in higher education working on accessibility, ACE's attitude is all-too-familiar.  Too often, higher education's approach to equal access has been to whine that equality for students with disabilities would stifle innovation.  I've heard it argued in planning meetings for wheelchair access to public buildings and football stadiums, in the early years of developing the first university web sites.  Despite the fact that all of those battles have been won with stunning effectiveness as a result of the efforts of the NFB and other disability-rights advocates, ACE insists on going back to the same old dry well

Higher education is facing a crisis of relevance - rising tuition costs and ballooning student debts, as well as stiff competition for shrinking high school graduates in the post-baby boom era.  Yet many colleges and universities lead in innovations in a wide number of areas, such as science, technology, medicine and more - almost all of it funded by billions in federal research funds.  Often, the innovative products that come out of these federally-funded projects are spun off into  entrepreneurial corporations.

Innovation, then, is not new to higher education.  Arguably, higher ed's innovations support the United States’ leading role in science and technology - and the global economy.  So why this medieval stance from ACE with respect to equal access to education for students with disabilities?

ACE has a choice - it could realize that the TEACH Act would fulfill the very need to innovate for the student of the future, more of whom will be students with disabilities trying to navigate electronic learning management systems, textbooks and more.

In a September 5 Boston Globe op-ed piece,  NFB of Massachusetts President Kyle Shachmut also took ACE to task, even calling out three Boston-area University presidents who sit on ACE's Board of Directors.  goo.gl/qjvbgv 
Curious, we checked ACE's website for Coloradans who might be found on the Board and found these:
ACE Board of Directors
Nancy McCallin, President, Colorado Community College System

DESIGNATED ASSOCIATIONS
Term Ending May 2015
American Association of State Colleges & Universities
Stephen Jordan, President, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Colorado’s community colleges and Metro State are vibrant institutions and vital to the state’s educational and economic life – a positive reflection on its leaders.  But ACE and its Colorado leaders need to do their homework about TEACH.  The NFB of Colorado calls on Presidents McCallin and Jordan to step up, embrace innovation in accessibility for students with disabilities and use their positions of responsibility to point ACE into the future for access to the new, innovative learning technologies their institutions and those across the nation have embraced - and especially those yet to come. 

Presidents McCallin and Jordan, it's 2014 and high time for ACE to begin to look forward, not backward with respect to students with disabilities. 

Join us - we will live the lives we want!

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