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The health care bill emerging from a key Senate committee now includes expanded independent living options and autism insurance coverage, both of which are good news for people with disabilities, advocates say. The Senate finance committee agreed last week to include an amendment mandating insurance coverage for behavior treatments used with those who have autism. Similar legislation has passed in many states, but advocates say a federal mandate is key.

May 5, 2010, Washington, DC:--The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) thanks Senators Mark Pryor (AR) and John Kerry (MA) for introducing the “Equal Access to 21st Century Communications Act” (S. 3304).  The measure is a major step forward for people with disabilities in ensuring accessible technology. Also co-sponsoring are Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, both from North Dakota. Similar to the “Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act” (H.R. 3101) introduced in the U.S. House,  S. 3304 would modernize disability accessibility mandates in the Communications Act, bringing existing requirements up to date as television and phone services connect via the Internet and use new digital and broadband technologies.

Subcommittee Hearing - Getting the Most Bang for the Buck: Quality Early Education and Care

The Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247) was introduced by Congressman George Miller (D-CA), Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference and Co-Chair of the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus. At the same time, Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a companion bill, S.2860, declaring, “The tragedies associated with the inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint are not only unacceptable, they are unconscionable.” The two bills are almost the same, with only two differences, noted below. The bipartisan House bill will be considered by the full Committee early next year (called “marking up.”)  If the Committee votes in favor of the bill, it will go to the full House for a vote.

An effort by the Obama administration to overhaul the troubled federal agency that is responsible for the education of tens of thousands of American Indian children is getting major pushback from some tribal leaders and educators, who see the plan as an infringement on their sovereignty and a one-size-fits-all approach that will fail to improve student achievement in Indian Country. As Barack Obama makes his first visit to Indian Country as president this week, the federal Bureau of Indian Education—which directly operates 57 schools for Native Americans and oversees 126 others run by tribes under contract with the agency—is moving ahead with plans to remake itself into an entity akin to a state department of education that would focus on improving services for tribally operated schools. A revamped BIE, as envisioned in the proposal, would eventually give up direct operations of schools and push for a menu of education reforms that is strikingly similar to some championed in initiatives such as Race to the Top, including competitive-grant funding to entice tribal schools to adopt teacher-evaluation systems that are linked to student performance. The proposed reorganization of the BIE comes after years of scathing reports from watchdog groups, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and chronic complaints from tribal educators about the agency’s financial and academic mismanagement and failure to advocate more effectively for the needs of schools that serve Native American students. It also comes a year after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the federally funded Indian education system “an embarrassment.” The BIE is overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed within the U.S. Interior Department. Pushback From Tribes The proposal, released in April, was drafted by a seven-person “study group” appointed jointly by Ms. Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Five of the panel’s members currently serve in the Obama administration. Some of the nation’s largest tribes, however, are staunchly opposed to the proposal, including the 16 tribes that make up the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association, which represents tribal leaders in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. “It’s time for us to decide what our children will learn and how they will learn it because [BIE] has been a failure so far,” Bryan V. Brewer, the chairman of the 40,000-member Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., said last month in a congressional hearing on the BIE. In the same hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Charles M. Roessel, the director of the BIE and a member of the panel that drafted the plan, said the agency’s reorganization “would allow the BIE to achieve improved results in the form of higher student scores, improved school operations, and increased tribal control over schools.” (Despite multiple requests from Education Week, the BIE did not make Mr. Roessel or any other agency official available for an interview.)

A bill imposing first-ever federal oversight on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools cleared the House of Representatives Wednesday, paving the way for Senate consideration. The bill now called the Keeping All Students Safe Act passed by a vote of 262 to 153, despite objections from numerous Republicans who said the measure was premature and would infringe on states’ rights to oversee education. The vote came down largely along party lines even though the measure was sponsored by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

For First Time in Nation's History, Federal Government Recognizes Added Costs Associated to Living With a Disability WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - December 17, 2014) - Last night, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014 by a vote of 76 to 16. First introduced in 2006, and subsequent sessions of Congress, the ABLE Act will allow people with disabilities (with an age of onset up to 26 years old) and their families the opportunity to create a tax-exempt savings account that can be used for maintaining health, independence and quality of life.