From the Washington Post:

A federal court monitor has found that the admissions practices at some D.C. public charter schools discourage the enrollment of students with disabilities. The monitor, Amy Totenberg, said some charters explicitly limit the number of hours of services they provide to students with disabilities and counsel parents to go elsewhere.

D.C. charter schools are publicly funded but independently operated. D.C. law prohibits them from asking about disabilities during the admissions process.

About 23 percent of D.C. public school students receive special education services, as compared with 12 percent of the students in D.C. charter schools.

Earlier post here.

From the Boston Globe:

In the face of complaints about inadequate equipment and ill-prepared medical workers, two of the nation’s leading hospitals have agreed to spend millions of dollars to improve accessibility for patients with disabilities.

Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hopital, both affiliated with Harvard University, voluntarily agreed to remove barriers, improve equipment and train staff.

For patients such as Pamela Daly, who was paralyzed in a car accident 37 years ago, the agreement is an acknowledgement of the disrespect and discomfort they have endured. As part of the compact, patients will be directly involved in approving consultants and reviewing blueprints for improvements. “We finally get to have a voice,” Daly said.

For the hospitals, it is an explicit recognition that they have failed to do enough to accommodate the region’s disabled children and adults, who now account for 15 percent of the state’s population. And it also means they are spared the humiliation and expense of lawsuits that activists elsewhere filed to force improved access to medical care.

Two national organizations representing people with Down syndrome announced this week that they have reached a consensus with representatives of three national groups of medical professionals to establish common ground on prenatal screening and testing.

In a press release, the organizations said the coalition had agreed that health professionals and the public need non-judgmental, non-coercive, balanced, up-to-date, and accurate information about Down syndrome. They identified possible areas of collaboration for the future, and said dialogue among the groups was moving them toward “greater mutual understanding.”

Entitled “Toward Concurrence: Understanding Prenatal Screening and Diagnosis of Down Syndrome from the Health Professional and Advocacy Community Perspectives,” the document was endorsed by representatives of the National Down Syndrome Society, the National Down Syndrome Congress, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the American College of Medical Genetics, and the National Society of Genetic Counselors, according to a press release from NDSS and NDSC.

The consensus agreement emerged out of a two-day meeting last fall that was hosted by the University of South Carolina’s Genetic Counseling Program and the University’s Center for Disability Resources. It follows recommendations by ACOG that all pregnant women regardless of age be offered prenatal screening and testing for fetal chromosomal abnormalities.

The document sets out the following areas of consensus among the groups:

• Balanced, accurate public information on the lives and value of individuals with Down syndrome is needed;
• Health professionals need education about Down syndrome that is based on the most up-to-date information;
• Education for expectant parents regarding prenatal screening and testing should be consistent; and
• Information for parents receiving a genetic diagnosis should be complete, consistent, non-judgmental, and non-coercive.

The coalition also attempted to dispel what it termed “apparent misperceptions” about prenatal testing among the general public, advocates and health care professionals. The consensus document made the following assertions:

• It is a misperception to say that obstetricians are recommending prenatal tests to reduce the number of individuals in society who have birth defects and genetic conditions;
• It is a misperception to say that the purpose of offering prenatal diagnosis to all pregnant women is to decrease the number of births of children with Down syndrome;
• It is a misperception to say that ninety percent of pregnancies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are terminated;
• It is a misperception to say that NDSS and NDSC are pro-life organizations;
• It is a misperception to say that genetic counselors with master’s degrees influence parents to accept pregnancy termination; and
• It is a misperception to say that prenatal screening and testing are performed exclusively to detect Down syndrome.

From the Washington Post:

Veterans group are urging Congress to overhaul Department of Veterans Affairs procedures for handling cases as the backlog of unresolved disability claims nears the one million mark.

The American Legion and the National Veteran’s Foundation are both criticizing the VA for delaying veterans’ benefits, but the VA argues that the 1 million figure is misleading and that it is incorrect to refer to it as backlog.

Critics accuse the VA of resorting to semantics. “It seems like they’re looking at ways to minimize the significance of it,” said Steve Smithson, deputy director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation at the American Legion.

“At the end of the day, these are still individual veterans waiting for benefits they were promised,” said Meaghan Smith, a spokeswoman for [House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.)]. “If you asked the veteran waiting, he or she would call it a backlog.”

On the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court Olmstead decision, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law called for a renewed effort to integrate people with disabilities in their communities. The organization’s report, “Still Waiting — The Unfulfilled Promise of Olmstead,” says federal and state governments could save billions of dollars by moving people with mental disabilities from institutional to community settings.

Among the report’s key points:

• States must end the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in institutions, and shift funding to appropriate community-based services;
• States continue to waste scarce resources by placing people with mental illnesses in costly, ineffective institutional settings, often under pressure by profit-making providers; and
• Supreme Court and other judicial nominees must have an understanding of and intention to uphold Olmstead, the ADA, and other civil rights laws.

“On this pivotal anniversary of Olmstead, we must take a hard look at what really needs to be accomplished to adequately serve millions of people with mental illnesses so that they receive the most integrated care possible,” said Robert Bernstein, executive director of the Bazelon Center. The report was released at a Washington press conference.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell is proposing that charter schools in Pennsylvania should return any publicly funded special education dollars that are not spent for that purpose. The money would be returned to the school districts that fund the charters by giving subsidies for each child.

[The largest charter school in the state] received $21,840 last school year for each special-education student from its home district … more than three times the $6,812 subsidy it got for each regular student.

But state calculations show that the charter spent less than a third of the $9.4 million it received for special-education students on special education.

Education Department spokesperson Michael Race said the problem is widespread and that the governor’s proposal is “a simple matter of accountability to taxpayers for their dollars. If money is expended for special education, it should be spent on actual special-education needs. If not, it should be returned.”

Charter officials say the figures are skewed because the state’s calculations did not include many indirect special-education expenses.

From the Today Show, with video:

Ginny and Matt Mooney learned before birth that their son Eliot would be born with a rare genetic syndrome called Trisomy 18.  Doctors told them that if their son lived through childbirth, he would probably not survive more than a few weeks. They decided to document and celebrate their son’s short life, producing a powerful video that has garnered millions of views on Youtube.

Eliot lived 99 days; at his funeral, friends and family released one balloon for each day he lived.

The Mooneys have since had a daughter, Hazel. They say they cherish the time they spent with their son, and that his life has changed them for the better.

More info on Trisomy 18 at the Trisomy 18 Foundation.