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Separate is Not Equal – Towards Disability Rights 2.0

30 years ago, disability rights advocates crawled up the steps of the US Capitol to demonstrate to everyone how inaccessible the US is. Their fight was to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, and they succeeded. The ADA turned 30 last week. But, today, those steps are no more accessible than they were. All…

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The Americans with Disabilities Act at 30 and reflections on “Being Heumann”

Three things before we get started today…. First, a quick heads up, this episode is going to be a longer than usual. I typically target around 10 minutes for our core weekly episodes, this one may get close to 30 minutes… Second, we’ve added a video version of the podcast on YouTube. Our YouTube channel…

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Healthcare Rationing or Murder by Triage

Healthcare rationing or Murder by Triage. One certainly sounds more polite and policy-like than the other… but, really, which is one is the Disability Community confronting as our society struggles with COVID-19? What lessons should we learn and what actions should we take? See episode notes. I’m your host, Steven Davis and welcome to the…

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Palo Alto’s 504 Plan Puzzle

Palo Alto Unified School District’s 504 Plan demographics are substantially different than California’s or the rest of the US states with around 7% of our students having a 504 plan (see attachments) vs. the national average of 2.7%, California at 4% and the highest state average New Hampshire at 6.2% (tab 2 of “Enrollment-Overall”) Thank…

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Segregated Special Education in Palo Alto – a long way to go

“when students are included, they have more access to the general curriculumand effective instruction, they achieve at higher rates of academicperformance, and they acquire better social and behavioral outcomes.” According to the latest report under IDEA for Palo Alto, 7.75% of students spend less than 40% oftheir day in general education (reports from 2021). Compared…