From the Chicago Tribune with video:

The family of Oscar Guzman say the 16-year-old was standing outside his family’s restaurant when Chicago police began questioning him and he walked away. When the officers went after him, his family says he ran for the restaurant, yelling, “I’m a special boy!” Guzman has autism.

Guzman’s family said one of the officers struck him in the head with a baton, cutting a gash that required eight stitches. Officials are investigating.

The incident happened days after the department held an Autism Safety Awareness Night and instructed officers on how to recognize the needs of citizens with mental illness or disabilities.

(Chicago Tribune photo)

A Q&A from the Washington Post with editor’s note:

Quinn Bradlee discusses his new memoir, “A Different Life,” and website. Bradlee has velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS) and multiple learning disabilities, and is the son of Washington Post veterans Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn.

An excerpt:

Q: Is the book meant to be about being learning disabled, or about the trials of youth in general?

A: When I first set out to write the book, it was a book about me. It is about my experience. . . . It was never meant to be a guide, I guess, for people with learning disabilities. But that seems to be what it’s turning into.

Q: In it you describe smoking marijuana and your first sexual experience. Why did you decide to be so open?

A: I’ve always been open my whole life. I want to educate people. The more open I was, the more other people would build their self-confidence to be open about their problems. Because everybody has problems. . . . The more and more people get confident and share their stories, then we can educate people and then people won’t look at us so weird.

From the ABC News “Political Punch” blog, Associated Press/USA Today, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Photo Journal:

U.S. Park Police arrested 91 demonstrators in front of the White House yesterday, including some in wheelchairs who chained themselves to the fence. They were protesting what they said was the Obama administration’s failure to honor its campaign promises to support the Community Choice Act.

The measure would provide people with disabilities and older Americans the option to use federal funding for community-based attendant services instead of just for nursing homes.

(Photo from the Wall Street Journal)

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about funding for special education, editorial writers at the Baltimore Sun say the case highlights the need for improving the quality of public education for all children. An excerpt:

Whatever the court decides in this case, funding special education will remain a problem until some form of comprehensive education reform is enacted. Private institutions will never be able to make up for the failures of large numbers of public school special-ed programs that don’t work. What’s needed are across-the-board improvements in public education that also include raising the quality of instruction and services offered to children with special needs.

See also: Why deny D.C. children what students with disabilities get? Editorial in the Washington Post. An excerpt:

Public schools should be pressed to do a better job for students with disabilities and students without. But there are schools in Washington where statistics show that failure is almost guaranteed. If a school system can’t educate a child — whether because of acute special needs or its own historical failings — why should that child not have options for a “free appropriate public education”?

BBC columnist Disability Bitch says Susan Boyle’s star turn on Britain’s Got Talent made her feel like running off to join the circus. Boyle has said she has learning disabilities. An excerpt:

My question, readers, is this: why are people so astonished when they discover either that 1) a disabled person is actually talented; or 2) a talented person is actually disabled? While it’s very lovely that one of our number is making the headlines for something other than committing benefit fraud, it does speak volumes about the low level of expectation that the public has for disabled people in general. I had to eat an extra packet of doughnuts when I realised that.

Depressing, isn’t it? I do, however, have a plan. You see, Normal People have always loved to watch Abnormal People. Back in the days before the welfare state, the most lucrative career option for weird looking folk was to appear in freak shows … Disabled people are fascinating, and everyone loves to watch us. So let’s take advantage.

… Readers, get yourself to karaoke and start practising.

Boyle’s performance is here: 46 million views and still rising.

(Photo from the [UK] Times)

From the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court will consider a case this week which aims to define when public school officials must pay for private schooling to educate children with disabilities – a question that pits beleaguered parents against cash-strapped school districts. Millions of dollars are at stake.

Under federal law, every child with disabilities is entitled to a “free and appropriate public education.” School systems which cannot provide appropriate services must reimburse parents for private school costs. The court is being asked to decide whether schools must first be given a chance to provide services before being required to pay for private school placement.

School officials argue that a ruling in favor of the parents would contribute to soaring public education costs and detract from the education of students with disabilities who remain in public schools. Parents say a ruling in favor of school districts would mean that students would have to fail in their public schools before they could get services in private schools.

From the New York Times:

As states struggle to cope with growing budget deficits, more disability claims workers are being furloughed — even though their  pay comes from the federal government.

Officials say that 2,700 such workers have been furloughed in seven states, causing further delays in providing disability payments to eligible claimants. The average wait to resolve a disability claim is already a year and four months.

See also: Why the Social Security Disability Insurance system is crumbling — by Jim Allsup in the San Jose Mercury News

The Social Security Administration relies on state employees to process disability claims, but provides a full reimbursement for all expenses. So Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to force these employees to take time off won’t save the state any money. It will just add to the nation’s largest disability backlog.