From the Spokane [WA] News-Review:

Officials in the Spokane Public Schools say an influx of students with disabilities is putting a strain on a school district that is already struggling financially.

The state of Washington caps funding for special education at 12.7 percent of a district’s total student population. Spokane’s special education enrollment now stands at close to 3,500 students, or about 500 more than the state will pay for, and officials say it is continuing to grow. School officials estimate the unfunded cost of the 500 students at about $2.2 million.

School officials say families of kids with disabilities are moving to Spokane from smaller communities in order to get needed services for their children. Spokane is among several school districts that are suing the state over special education funding.

In Business Week’s Working Parents blog, Anne Newman poses this provocative question in a discussion of Including Samuel, which is being aired nationally on PBS. The award-winning documentary by Dan Habib chronicles his family’s efforts to include son Samuel (left), who has cerebral palsy, in all aspects of daily life, including education.

Newman says her earlier blog post on the film drew support from many who saw inclusion as the next civil rights movement, but a vocal minority questioned whether scarce resources should be spent on it. Wrote one: ‘Why do we even bother paying for education for these kids?”

She passed the questions on to Habib, who responded with a list of myths and realities about inclusion. “People are not limited by their disability,” he replied. “They are limited by a lack of opportunity.”

Newman asks: “What about it, readers? … Do students with disabilities in your schools learn along with their peers? Are your schools strained or strengthened by including them?”

See also:

Film teaches inclusion of students with disabilities — [Madison] Wisconsin State Journal

An excerpt:

… the film’s sponsors are leading efforts to have young people around the world hold viewing parties and take action for inclusion.

“We will get there when families without disabilities are advocating for this,” Habib said of inclusion.

From the Columbus [OH] Dispatch:

Rosemarie Rossetti and husband Mark Leder are building a universal design home outside Columbus, Ohio, which will double as their residence and a laboratory showcasing the latest accessible features. Rossetti, 56, was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident in 1998. The couple became frustrated when they couldn’t find a home that was suitable for someone in a wheelchair.

“I want it to be a catalyst for change in the building industry,” said Rossetti, a motivational speaker and writer.

The home, which will include features such as an elevator to the basement, extra-wide hallways, and lever handles on doors and faucets, will be available for tours and gatherings for architects, builders and others interested in universal design.

“Our intent is to have small groups for learning,” Rossetti said. “I want builders to recognize a need for universal design — that it is a design whose time has come for them to embrace it.”

‘I feel like I’ve lied to a lot of people’

From Newsweek (with video):

Alan T. Brown, who is quadriplegic as the result of an injury, has spent the last two decades trying to find a cure for people who are paralyzed. Now he’s changed his emphasis, working toward improving medical care, insurance coverage and quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries.

“All those people that I’ve spoken to over the years, in the hospitals and the families, and I said ‘one day there’s going to be a cure,’” he says. “And I hope there is … But I can’t guarantee that’s going to happen and I’m not going to sit around and wait any more. I have two children that I have to make sure are cared for.”

Brown is collaborating with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which changed its slogan in the summer of 2008 “Go Forward” to “Today’s Care. Tomorrow’s Cure.”

“When we first started, our entire focus was to find a cure, to get people walking again,” says Reeve Foundation president and CEO Peter Wilderhotter. “As we came to realize that since no injury is completely alike and given the complexity of the spinal cord-there will be no ‘magic bullet.’”

Theo Emery writes in the New York Times: The Choice Blog that applying to college can pose more hurdles for students with learning disabilities than for their nondisabled peers.

After attending a workshop titled, “Supporting the Transition to College for Students with Learning Disabilities,” at a conference of 5,000 admissions officers and counselors in Baltimore, Emery offers some suggestions for applicants with disabilities including dyslexia, ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.

• Decide whether you want to disclose your disability and take advantage of campus disability services. While it is illegal for admissions officers to ask, applicants may benefit if their disability status is known.
• Assess a college based on accommodations it is willing to make, services it will provide, and availability of programs for people with disabilities.
• Be aware of the contents of your transcript and psychoeducational evaluation, and let that information help guide your choice of where to apply.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

Pennsylvania is one of  five states in the nation without an adult-protection law that would allow county or regional agencies to investigate and record incidents of alleged abuse or neglect of adults with intellectual disabilities.

Advocates say that without such a law, those accused of abuse can continue to work in the same field. Adult-protective-services bills have been introduced in the state House and Senate, but both are stuck in committee.

The holdup is frustrating to [Stephen Suroviec, executive director of the Arc of Pennsylvania] and others who say Pennsylvania’s priorities are out of whack, considering that animal-cruelty laws seem to get passed “at the snap of a finger,” he said.

(Philadelphia Daily News photo)

From the AP/San Francisco Examiner:

An audit by the Veterans Affairs Department’s inspector general has concluded that too many veterans are waiting more than a year to get their disability claims processed.

The audit found that 11,000 veterans had been waiting more than a year as of one year ago, and that about $14 million of $43 million in retroactive payments had been unnecessarily delayed because of inadequate claims processing.

The report said the VA has hired more claims processors, but delays still create significant burdens for veterans.