An excerpt from the Los Angeles Daily News:

None of the 29 Los Angeles Unified charter schools examined in a study released Monday met state and federal standards aimed at making campuses accessible to disabled students, and some even lacked wheelchair-friendly bathrooms and walkways.

The study by a federally appointed independent monitor also revealed that the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, which determines whether schools are compliant with these laws, is not making proper inspections.

An independent monitor was appointed in 2003 to oversee a federal consent decree imposed on the school district to improve special education services. An earlier report by the monitor also blasted LAUSD charter schools for enrolling fewer disabled students overall and fewer with severe disabilities than traditional schools.

“This is part of a larger issue … and that is whether charter schools, which are a growing proportion of schools in LAUSD, welcome and are accessible to students with disabilities,” said Independent Monitor Fred Weintraub.

“Our studies have shown that is not currently the case and we’re looking to the district to improve the situation.”

The independent monitor’s complete report can be viewed at www.oimla.com.

See also:

Union-run charter enrolls lower percentage of students with disabilities — New York Daily News

Earlier posts here.

Software improvements are already bringing a ‘new era of empowerment’ for those with disabilities

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Berin Szoka notes that recent technological innovations are radically improving access for people with disabilities. For example, he says, a speech-recognition application for the iPhone now allows users to dictate email, text messages and full documents. Apple and Microsoft have built powerful accessibility features into their latest operating systems, and Google has announced it will caption all the videos on YouTube.

Szoka argues that these and other improvements were spurred by competitive forces, and will improve profits for tech companies. He opposes using regulation to force manufacturers to expand access for people with disabilities. An excerpt:

“Equal access” to the latest gadgets may sound appealing, but policymakers should recognize that regulation will only stifle the innovations that could most help the disabled.

Szoka is director of the Center for Internet Freedom at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, which is supported by Google, Microsoft and a host of other technology and media companies.

San Diego Chargers owner will retrofit thousands of rental properties

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, AP/ABC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

In what is being called the largest disabled-access settlement in the housing industry, [San Diego] Chargers owner Alex Spanos’ development company will spend more than $12 million to retrofit thousands of apartment units found to be out of compliance with fair housing laws governing accessibility.

The settlement covers 15,500 units in 123 apartment properties in 11 states, and stems from a lawsuit filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance against the A.G. Spanos Cos., which is run by Spanos’ sons Michael and Dean Spanos.

In announcing the settlement, the National Fair Housing Alliance praised the developer for crafting a settlement that went beyond the letter of the law.

“It’s unusual for me to praise defendants in a case,” said Shanna Smith, president of the alliance … “This is a landmark, unique, comprehensive settlement.”

From Associated Press:

American businesses are increasingly working to make their websites more accessible, concluding that it is good business to welcome a growing population of potential online customers with disabilities.

Experts say the threat of civil rights lawsuits has also motivated some companies. Target Corp. last year agreed to pay $6 million in damages to plaintiffs with disabilities who could not access its website, and Apple. Inc. reached an agreement with the state of Massachusetts to make its iTunes software more accessible.

Most federal government websites are required by law to be accessible, but those operated by business are not.

From the San Francisco Chronicle (with video), New York Times, BBC:

Google has announced a plan to use speech recognition technology to automatically bring text captions to millions of YouTube videos, making them accessible to people with hearing impairments and making them more searchable.

Analysts expect the change to open the videos to a wider foreign market and potentially make them more profitable.

Engineer Ken Harrenstein, who helped develop the translation  system, said it was imperfect but “will continue to improve with time.” Harrenstein, who is deaf, said in a Google blog that the majority of user-generated content on Youtube has been inaccessible to “people like me.’

From Examiner.com:

This week’s episode of  the Fox series Glee, which chronicled a high school team’s effort to raise money for an accessible bus, ranked as the third most popular video on Hulu.com. The ‘Wheels’ episode explored questions about human diversity, and featured Kevin McHale’s character Artie Abrams, who uses a wheelchair on the show, and Lauren Potter (left) and Robin Trocki, two actresses with Down syndrome.

The full episode is available on Hulu.com here.

Writing on the New York Times Arts Beat blog, Mike Hale said he felt the show’s take on diversity delivered “a mixed message at best.” An excerpt:

Also problematic was the way Lauren Potter, a 19-year-old actress with Down syndrome, was used as a prop in the continuing humanization of [character] Sue Sylvester [played by Jane Lynch]. Forced by the principal to hold open auditions for the cheerleading squad, Sue chose Ms. Potter’s character, the cheerfully determined but not very skilled Becky Johnson… When the big reveal came, we discovered that Sue’s motives were pure: her own older sister has Down syndrome. This development is being praised throughout the Gleeverse, but the view from here is that it felt smarmy and artificial (and not artificial in a good way).

Entertainment Weekly’s Dan Snierson (on MSNBC.com) has a different view of Lynch’s tender scene with Trocki, in which Lynch’s character read “Little Red Riding Hood” to her older sister.

A little manipulative? Probably. But I didn’t care in that glorious moment.

Earlier posts here. and here.

(Photo from the Riverside [CA] Press-Enterprise).

From USA Today:

Crumbling sidewalks across the nation don’t meet federal requirements for disability access, putting people in wheelchairs at risk as they take to the streets.

Although there are no specific statistics on the number of accidents involving wheelchairs in streets, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, disability was a factor in 617 pedestrian traffic fatalities last year.

Disabled residents here take their lives in their hands getting from point A to point B, says Scott Crawford (above), a disability-rights advocate.

([Jackson, MS] Clarion-Ledger photo from USA Today)

See also: Cape gets mixed grade for access — Cape Cod Times