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International Forum on Independent Living

Keynote Speech:Education: Engine of Empowerment

Ms. Judy Heumann, U.S.Department of Education

My own point of view starts with the idea that education is the main engine of equality and empowerment. And that having high expectations for disabled students is the main engine for gaining excellent educational opportunities. Secretary Riley discussed the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act of the United States, - the IDEA - which today guarantees equality of educational opportunity for disabled students as a matter of right… a civil right. Well, I went to school long before the IDEA became law. I was among the more than 3.5 million American students with disabilities who did not receive adequate schooling. Actually, more than one million disabled children were not receiving any public education at all. I developed polio when I was one and a half. When it was time for me to go to school, the school officials did not see me - they only saw my wheelchair. And they barred me from class. I was a fire hazard, they said. The message from the school system was clear: society assumed my future was worth less than that of other children. Well, it was pretty easy for them to push around a kindergarten kid, but my mother was something else again. She is one of the toughest kinds of woman you'll ever meet - a housewife from Brooklyn, New York. Without experience, she and my father became activists and my strong advocates. They joined the ranks of hundreds of thousands of others in the movement for disability rights. And I finally did get my education. Thank you, mom. Years later, when I applied for my teacher's license, the Board of Education of the City of New York refused me again. I was still a fire hazard. But this time I could fend for myself, and the disability rights movement was gaining strength. I sued them. And I got my license, and taught elementary school for three years. Let me make this clear: in the United States, disabled students were more often than not denied good schooling until disabled people joined with their allies and won the right to an appropriate education for all. I benefited from their victories. I received a good education. And because I received a good education, I had the opportunities to achieve. Today, I am a ranking political official in the U.S. government working for President Bill Clinton.

Success in 1995
Because of the world-wide disability rights movement, we have come a long way in a short time. Nine years ago, Evincia Edwards of St Kitts, a blind single mother who was then 25 years old, summed up the global situation to me when she said, "We don't get much response from society." But two years ago, in Hairou and Beijing, we won a tremendous response from the international Women's Movement! And, thanks in part to the strong allies we made within the Women's Movement, we are able to hold this Forum. To me, the most profound significance of this Forum is that it signals that the issues of disabled women are truly integrated into the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women - the main product of the 1995 Beijing Conference.

Education as Right
Among other things, that platform calls on the peoples of the world, and the governments of the world, to intensify efforts to advance the goal of equal access to education by taking measures to eliminate discrimination in education at all levels on the basis of gender, race, or disability! This is a clear statement that equal access to education should be ours as a matter of right, not privilege. Being included prominently in the Beijing Platform for Action is a significant victory, but we all know that it will remain just a paper victory unless we work every day to make the words come alive and to make the goal of full equality come nearer. We are here today because disabled women still rank at the bottom of every scale that measures progress. Recent studies show that disabled women are among the least likely people to be employed, the most likely to live in dire poverty, and among the people most likely to die young! We are here today because disabled women still rank at the bottom of every scale that measures progress. Recent studies show that disabled women are among the least likely people to be employed, the most likely to live in dire poverty, and among the people most likely to die young! Studies have shown that strong networks, both national and international, are needed to enable girls and women with disabilities to support each other in their efforts to live independent, productive lives. But creating a world that facilitates and nurtures the contributions we can all make takes strong programs underpinning the networks.

Poverty and Illiteracy
Lack of educational opportunities is both a cause and an effect of poverty and discrimination, but we can make discrimination against disabled women a dim historic footnote of the past by creating equal educational opportunities in the future.

  • One of the reasons that disabled women are among the poorest of the poor is because some 65 percent of the world's women are illiterate. In Africa, that rises to 85 percent.
  • One of the reasons that the percentage of disabled women in the work force is so low is because only 1 to 2 percent of disabled children in developing countries receive any education at all, and it is well-known from field studies that disabled boys attend schools much more frequently than disabled girls.
  • And one reason that disabled girls receive less care than disabled boys is that there are not enough disabled women with sufficient education to act as advocates for disabled girls.

In other words, while education is an important link to the future for all people, to disabled people getting a good education can be a matter of survival. Indeed, a 1994 conference on "Blind Women in Africa" presented information from 32 countries that demonstrated that access to literacy programs and education was often their only way to avoid a life of begging in the streets. However, even in the wealthiest countries, disabled people have often had access only to inferior education.

Platform for Action
The Platform for Action from the Beijing conference calls for the creation of universal access to basic education by the year 2000, for the elimination of the gender gap in primary and secondary school education by the year 2005, and for universal primary education is all countries before the year 2015. We must work - and work every day - to ensure that disabled students - both girls and boys - are included in plans for meeting these goals. The Platform for Action calls for collaboration between parents, communities, educators and business to ensure universal education for all. We must make sure that parents of disabled students are included. The Platform for Action calls for career planning, leadership and social skills to be included in girls' education. We must make sure such training and education includes disabled students as well. When I was a student, I received virtually no career counseling because it was generally assumed that disabled people could have no significant careers outside of sheltered situations or medical settings. What a waste of human potential that kind of thinking was! The Platform for Action calls for sufficient resources to be allocated for the accomplishment of educational goals. We must make sure this includes the technological devices and learning supports disabled students need to succeed. The Platform for Action calls for better training for teachers. We must make sure that all teachers are sufficiently trained to serve the needs of disabled as well as non-disabled students. And the Platform for action calls for the contributions of teaching materials that show the creation of women. We must make sure teaching materials also show the contributions of disabled persons.

Learn from Other's Mistakes
I urge you all, as your nations develop their education policies, learn from the mistakes of my country, the U.S.. For example, when we built most of our public schools, we did not build them to be accessible to disabled students. That was an expensive mistake. Today, we are having to rebuild all our schools to accommodate disabled students. It would have been much cheaper for us to have built our schools accessible in the first place. As your nations develop their education policies, please recognize the grave error of creating segregated school systems. We created separate schools for the disabled in the United States because it was generally felt that disabled students could not learn to the same high standards as other students. Today we know better. Today we know that every student can learn - disabled or non-disabled.

Results of U.S. Law
For example, since the disability rights movement won the passage of the IDEA, the percentage of students with disabilities who graduated from high school or received a completion certificate has risen from 55% in 1984-85 to over 66%. And more than 44% of college-age disabled students attended at least some postsecondary education in 1991-92, up from just 29% in 1984-85.  To win laws similar to the IDEA around the world, we must continue doing what we have been doing: building a strong world wide disability rights movement, building strong alliances within the Women's Movement, and within the union movement, and within the movements for civil rights for all in every nation on earth.

Self-Esteem
A strong Disability Rights Movement must be based on people who have a feeling of self-esteem. With self-esteem people can feel they have rights and deserve to have right. People can get angry and do something about it. But too many people with disabilities most of their lives have fallen victim to a system that is paternalistic at best and treats them as charity cases, or is cruel and arbitrary at worst and ignores both the existence and potential of people with disabilities. But we know the truth. Being disabled is just a way of being, It's: natural… healthy… normal. Or at least it could be for most people if they had the resources and supports they need. Understanding this fact is the beginning of building the self-esteem it takes to build a movement that speaks up for disabled people.

Role Models
And the willingness to speak up effectively takes pride. To build this pride, it is vital that disabled students meet disabled adults who are engaged in a wide variety of professions and roles. I know the importance of role models from my own experience. I don't remember meeting anybody else with polio until I was 10 or 11. When I became a teacher and taught a classroom of disabled children, I was the first disabled teacher those children had. That was then. This is now. Hopefully today, we can all help disabled children - and adults - build pride in themselves.

Conclusion
Together, we are strong and growing stronger every day! The fact that we were able to organize this Forum shows that what anthropologist Margaret Mead said so many years ago is absolutely true today:  "Never doubt." She said, "that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has."

Title : International Forum on Independent Living
Publisher : Japan Council on Independent Living Centers
Date : 1998/10/20

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