Organizing for America | Kareem Dale's Blog: Funding Education for Children with Disabilities is Crucial to Providing Equal Opportunities

Funding Education for Children with Disabilities is Crucial to Providing Equal Opportunities

By Kareem Dale, National Disability Vote Director, Obama for America - Jul 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm EDT

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Hi, I am the new Disability Vote Director for the Obama for America campaign. You will be hearing more and more from me and the campaign as the days go on. I wanted to pass along parts of a statement related to education for Americans with disabilities that was released yesterday.

In a July 16th statement about education, Obama campaign spokeperson Bill Burton highlighted his educational policy related to Americans with disabilities:

“We applaud Senator McCain for addressing education in his speech today, as it is a central challenge for our long-term economic future and the future of all of our children,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. “But making education the national priority will require more than campaign speeches, or recycled bromides. It will require a genuine and sustained commitment to policies that will strengthen and not undermine our public schools. Barack Obama has led the fight to reform our school system and ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. He knows that a good education can be the ticket to opportunity for all Americans-regardless of their circumstances. As President, he'll fix and fund No Child Left Behind, expand access to early childhood education, and make an affordable college education a reality for every student.”

The statement released on July 16th further stated “Barack Obama supports students with disabilities by being a strong and consistent advocate for fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”

The statement also pointed out that Barack Obama’s education policy includes: Investing in Zero to Five Education; Creating Early Learning Challenge Grants; Expanding Early Head Start; and Encouraging All States to Adopt Voluntary, Universal Pre-School.

As explained in his plan to empower Americans with disabilities, Barack Obama will invest $10 billion per year in early intervention educational and developmental programs for children between zero and five. His plan will help expand Early Head Start to serve more children with disabilities, and will spur states, through programs like Early Learning Challenge Grants, to expand programs for children with disabilities, and integrate these programs with other early childhood programs.

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Good to see | Report to Admin

By Riv Jul 18th 2008 at 8:53 am EDT

I'm glad to see a new presence on the Americans with disabilities for Obama page. I belong to every groups having to do with disabilites on MYBO. I have posted several items to the Disability Policy group both on the blog and on the email group, the emails are never disseminated. I'm so very frustrated at the lack of activity and attention to my concerns. The most recent is related to access to events in the community. Specifically with regard to the Platform Planning Events, there is one in Columbus Ohio which is described as "High quality research informs us how to increase achievement for students who are at risk or have disabilities, but too often that research is ignored in 20th century schools. This platform meeting will focus on helping Barack Obama develop an effective education platform that will lead to increased student achievement in high poverty schools and for students with disabilities."
This meeting is NOT wheelchair accessible, that simply doesn't made sense to me.
As a former Rehabilitation Counselor and Education major, I believe I could add to the discussion, however, I am not able to attend.

I have blogged on several occasions about the need for event coordinators to state whether or not their events are accessible, for the campaign to address access to events on the signup page, to no avail. At this point I simply don't have the time or energy to continue the fight, I'm a busy person and must move on.

Re: Good to see | Report to Admin

By Suzie McKay Jul 18th 2008 at 9:07 am EDT

Good for you, Riv! More attention must be paid to our citizens and residents with disabilities. We need relevant information disseminated across MYBO. Why are sub-group like First Americans, Hispanics and Pacific Islanders granted a very material presence while disabled folks are not?

What about 5+ year olds? | Report to Admin

By Amber from Attica, NY Aug 14th 2008 at 7:51 pm EDT (Updated Aug 14th 2008 at 7:51 pm EDT)

I'm all for EI - I promote the CDC campaign, advocate for parents who have children in the EI system, and contribute my children's progress to the fact we began intervention so early.

However, my experience has shown that EI seems to be the "easiest" to navigate and does not have the same shortage of services, providers, support or resources.

The money needs to go into the public schools, on enforcing NCLB and IDEA, and to set up transitional support/services; not to mention the disparity when it comes to being an adult with a disability in our Country.

I think, actually I know, we can do better as a Country.

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.