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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