[Senate Hearing 107-547]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-547
THE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ACCESSIBILITY ACT: MAKING INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS AVAILABLE TO ALL STUDENTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
S. 2246
EXAMINING S. 2246, TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO PRINTED INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
USED BY BLIND OR OTHER PERSONS WITH PRINT DISABILITIES IN ELEMENTARY
AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS
__________
JUNE 28, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
80-580 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
TOM HARKIN, Iowa BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
PATTY MURRAY, Washington PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
JACK REED, Rhode Island SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
J. Michael Myers, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Townsend Lange McNitt, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2002
Page
Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Connecticut.................................................... 1
Schroeder, Patricia, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Association of American Publishers, Washington, DC; Jessie
Kirchner, Guilford, CT; Marc Maurer, President, National
Federation of the Blind, Baltimore, MD; and Barbara McCarthy,
Director, Library and Resource Center, Virginia Department For
the Blind and Vision Impaired, and President, Association of
Instructional Resource Centers For the Visually Impaired,
Richmond, VA................................................... 6
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Patricia Schroeder........................................... 24
Jessie Kirchner.............................................. 26
Marc Maurer.................................................. 27
Barbara N. McCarthy.......................................... 29
(iii)
THE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ACCESSIBILITY ACT: MAKING INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS AVAILABLE TO ALL STUDENTS
----------
FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:59 a.m., in
room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Dodd
presiding.
Present: Senator Dodd.
Opening Statement of Senator Dodd
Senator Dodd. [presiding]. The committee will come to
order.
Let me thank all of our witnesses this morning for their
presence here and all of you in the audience for attending this
hearing today. We are very grateful to have you here.
There is a timer up here with a little bell that will go
off after about 6 minutes or so--I do not want you to feel
obligated to stop at that point, but it is just an idea, so
that we can get through the testimony and get to questions. But
I do want all of you to know what whatever prepared testimony
and materials you think the committee ought to have, I am going
to make the unanimous consent request that all documentation
and all full statements be included as a part of the permanent
record of the committee. And again, the clock and the bell are
not to stop anyone, but just to give you an idea so you can
begin to wrap up your comments at that point, so we can move
the testimony along.
Colleagues will be coming in and out. We actually thought
we would be in session today, and we may be in session, but the
votes stopped last night when we completed action on the last
bill. So this being the 4th of July break in the Senate, many
of my colleagues have already departed Washington--I cannot
imagine why they want to do that--to go back to their States
and districts. And as a result, I cannot promise you that other
members will show up this morning, but I know of many members
who are interested in this subject matter. We have a lot of
bipartisan support for the legislation. So I would not want
anyone to interpret the lack of presence of other members this
morning as any indication of lack of interest in the subject
matter or support for what we are trying to do, but really more
the unpredictable reality of the Senate terminating its
business last evening and people heading off to be with their
families and their constituents back home.
So let me begin our hearing this morning with a few opening
comments myself, and then I am going to turn to my former
colleague from the House of Representatives, Pat Schroeder, who
is today president and chief executive officers of the
Association of American Publishers, and then I will introduce
the other witnesses.
The hearing we are holding this morning in the Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is entitled, ``S. 2246,
The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act: Making
Instructional Materials Available to all Students.'' That is a
long title for a bill, but that is what it is.
So let me express my thanks again to all of you for joining
us. We are here this morning to examine what I think is a very
critical piece of legislation, S. 2246, The Instructional
Materials Accessibility Act. We call it ``IMAA.'' Everything
has an acronym around here, but I have suggested that we could
call this one ``Mmm-ahh.'' It has sort of audio sound to it,
and we could say that to people, ``Mmm-ahh.'' It will literally
grant blind and visually-impaired students the ability to
pursue their studies at the same time as their sighted
classmates.
Critical laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act
and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act clearly
establish the principle that people with disabilities have a
right to the same public accommodations granted to those
without disabilities. While the ADA and IDEA clearly call for
blind and visually impaired students to have timely access to
the same textbooks that their sighted classmates use in the
Braille format that they need in order to read, sadly, this is
not often the case. Far too often, blind and visually-impaired
students must now wait months for their local school districts
to convert their books into the Braille format that they
require.
However, important laws such as the ADA and IDEA do not
specify exactly how we actually achieve equality in these
accommodations. As I learned recently in efforts to enact
national election reform legislation, there is a big difference
between simply stating that all people, regardless of
disability, are required to equal treatment and actually
enacting policies that ensure that this commendable goal is
truly reached.
The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act seeks to
bridge the gap in this area.
At the same time that blind and visually-impaired students
face interminable waits for their school textbooks to arrive in
Braille, the school districts in which they live often face
exorbitant costs to produce these conversions. As we will hear
from some of our witnesses this morning, those blind and
visually-impaired students who are forced to wait long
materials for their school materials in Braille face unfair
impediments to their ability to earn an education. Clearly,
something needs to be done to better enable students with
disabilities to access the instructional materials that they
need.
To combat the problems presented by the often difficult and
costly Braille conversion process, 26 States have passed laws
requiring publishers to provide a copy of textbooks in
electronic format to aid in Braille conversion. While the
efforts of these States are laudable, the problem lies in the
fact that these many laws do not require the use of the same
electronic format for Braille conversion. Alarmingly, there is
no current uniform electronic format available nationwide to
ease the transcription of instructional materials into Braille
and other alternative formats.
No one is well-served when we force blind and visually-
impaired students to unfairly wait for the opportunity to
learn, or when we force publishers to create multiple
electronic file formats for exactly the same school textbooks.
The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act offers a
significant leap forward, we believe, for both members of the
blind community and those that produce instructional materials
for their use.
Any answer to the problems presented by the difficulty of
Braille conversion must be prepared to answer two questions.
First, how can we ensure that blind and visually-impaired
students receive the essential school materials in the Braille
or alternative format they require at the same time as their
sighted classmates. And second, how can we better enable our
Nation's schools to meet the instructional material needs of
their blind and visually-impaired students?
The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act seeks to
answer both of these very important questions.
In order to best expedite the Braille conversion process,
the IMAA will mandate the creation of one uniform electronic
file format that we believe will greatly ease the often
laborious Braille translation process. The creation of a single
format will not only ease the burden placed on publishers by
the multiple State laws requiring different electronic files,
but it will also ease considerably the Braille conversion
process by allowing those who prepare instructional materials
in alternative formats to rely on a single conversion method.
Second, the IMAA will create the National Instructional
Materials Access Center to serve as a repository for these
electronic formats so that they can quickly and efficiently be
disseminated to local school districts. With the enactment of
IMAA, schools will simply need to reach out to the National
Instructional Materials Access Center to obtain the school
materials required by their students in the uniform electronic
file provided by the publishers.
Finally, the IMAA will provide critical funding to assist
State and local educational agencies, effectively convert the
newly created electronic files into Braille so that blind and
visually-impaired students have access to the same textbooks
their sighted classmates are using.
I want to especially thank the Association of American
Publishers, the National Federation of the Blind, and the
American Foundation for the Blind, for their willingness to
come together to help produce a very creative and far-reaching
piece of legislation. I am particularly pleased that we will
soon hear from the respective leaders of these two
organizations. I have mentioned already my dear friend and
former colleague from the House, Pat Schroeder, of the AAP, and
Marc Maurer of the NFB.
It is largely because of their dedication to this effort
that we are here today with this fine bill.
Finally, I want to thank Representative Tom Petri, my
colleague from the House, and George Miller from California,
with whom I was elected to Congress a quarter-century ago, who
are the primary sponsors of this bill in the House of
Representatives. I look forward to continuing to work with my
House colleagues to ensure that this critically important
legislation becomes law not some day, but this year. That is my
determination to see that that happens.
We often hear today the pledge that we will ``leave no
child behind.'' To accomplish this laudable goal which we all
share, we must provide that all children have the resources
they require to succeed in school without regard to the
disabilities that some students face. May I suggest that we
also make every effort to ensure that we leave no blind child
behind by passing The Instructional Materials Accessibility
Act.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome and thank our
witnesses for appearing this morning. I look forward to their
testimony.
As I am introducing our witnesses, let me also tell you--
and I mentioned this to Pat Schroeder, and Marc knows this as
well--but for those of you whom I have not met in the past,
like any person, I was deeply affected and learned so much
because of my wonderful parents and my remarkable sister who is
visually-impaired, legally blind, and who is a teacher. She has
two master's degrees and has taught for 35 years as an early
childhood development specialist. She helped revive the
Montessori system of teaching at The Whitney School back in
1950's.
I watched my sister Caroline grow up, for whom my parents
and my mother in particular made Herculean efforts all the
time, whether it was the New York Times books, the latest piece
of equipment that came out in the 1930's or the 1940's or the
1950's, so she could use microscopes and run her books
underneath them. But it was expensive, and my parents had some
resources and they could afford to do it, but it was always a
battle to make sure that she had the ability to stay current
with her school work.
Having watched my sister grow up with the struggles of
someone who is visually-impaired or legally blind, and knowing
how well she did had it not been for my parents who put the
effort in, she might not have been able to achieve the success
she did. But because she did, she has made a difference in the
lives of thousands of people as a great teacher in the State of
Connecticut.
So I was determined when I came to Congress in 1974,
beginning with the acts that we passed in P.L. 490, going back
to those days--I see some gray hair in the audience, and some
will remember those days more than 25 years ago--and then,
working with Tom Harkin and others over the years, I have been
determined to see to it that other Caroline Dodds growing up on
my watch would never have to go through what she went through.
So am not going to put a name on this act, but if I could, I
would name it for my sister.
I thank all of you for being here, and now we will turn to
our witnesses.
This morning, we are going to hear from a panel of four
witnesses. First, we will hear from my former colleague, Pat
Schroeder, who is now president and chief executive officer of
the Association of American Publishers. She served with me in
Congress, representing the State of Colorado and the Denver
area for 25 years. During her time in Congress, Ms. Schroeder
was chair of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and
Families. I have often said I love to talk about the bill that
we passed dealing with the rights of parents to be with their
children and their loved ones, which was so critically
important to so many people, the unpaid Family and Medical
Leave Act. A lot of people have taken credit for it, the
present presiding officer of this committee being one of them,
and I offered the bill in the Senate. But the first person who
introduced this bill, who never got the credit she deserved,
was a woman by the name of Pat Schroeder in the House.
I will never forget the day the bill was signed by
President Clinton, the very first bill that he signed into law,
I sat there at the table and unbelievably looked out, and we
had four or five people from the Senate and others, and there,
out in the audience, was Pat Schroeder, not standing with the
President to be part of the signing ceremony.
So I want to say to everyone over and over again that she
deserves as much credit, in fact more than anyone else, for the
passage of that law. So, you did a lot of great things when you
were in the House, but I am particularly grateful for your work
on that bill, which I take great pride in having authored here
in the Senate.
I am very delighted to have Pat with us today and grateful
for all the work that she has done and that the AAP is
continuing to do in this particular effort.
Our second witness is a special witness whom I have asked
to come down, and that is Jessie Kirchner from Guilford, CT.
Jessie is entering her senior year at Guilford High School, is
a member of the Connecticut Chapter of the National Federation
of the Blind, an organization that I know well. As I mentioned,
my sister Caroline is also a member. I had the distinct
pleasure to meet Jessie at a press conference that we held in
April when I said, ``Jessie, why don't you come up and say a
few words?'' And Jessie not only came up and said a few words,
but she bowled everyone over with the extemporaneous comments
that she made that day.
So I am pleased that you could come back down to be a
formal witness now in front of the U.S. Senate, and I thank you
for your work.
Next, we will hear from Dr. Marc Maurer, whom I have
introduced. Marc has been president of the National Federation
of the Blind since 1986, and has been a vocal advocate for the
blind since high school, when he discovered that blindness need
not be an incapacitating disability. He has used his talents
and skills as a lawyer to advance the interests of blind
individuals.
I thank you once again, Marc, for your presence here today.
Our final witness is Barbara McCarthy, from Richmond, VA.
Barbara is director of the Library and Resource Center of the
Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired. She is
also president of the Association of Instructional Resource
Centers for the Visually-Impaired. In these roles, Barbara has
worked to provide textbooks to the visually-impaired and blind
students from Virginia.
We thank you for all of your wonderful work, Barbara, and
are pleased to have you with us.
With those introductions, Pat Schroeder, we will begin with
you, and we thank you for joining us this morning.
STATEMENTS OF PATRICIA SCHROEDER, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS, WASHINGTON, DC;
JESSIE KIRCHNER, GUILFORD, CT; MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
FEDERATION OF THE BLIND, BALTIMORE, MD; AND BARBARA McCARTHY,
DIRECTOR, LIBRARY AND RESOURCE CENTER, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT FOR
THE BLIND AND VISION IMPAIRED, AND PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF
INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCE CENTERS FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED,
RICHMOND, VA
Ms. Schroeder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
very, very nice words.
I am basically going to put my statement in the record
because your opening statement says that you know as much about
this bill as any of us in this room, which is so characteristic
of you, and we cannot thank you enough for all that you have
done.
I am here basically to say that the publishers whole-
heartedly support this, and I really want to salute one
publisher who is here, Pearce McNulty from Houghton-Mifflin. He
is here, and he has been leading many of them to keep everybody
on line, and they are really very enthusiastic and thrilled
that this has come this far.
As you talked about this, your record has always been one
where you have done what is right, whether family and medical
leave, or this Instructional Materials Accessibility Act. There
is not a lot of money and power in this, but this is what
really, really needs to be done, and I salute you for saying
that you are going to do everything you can to get the House to
move. That is going to be a challenge, but let us get it done
this year, because even when you get it done, it is going to
take a while to get it up and moving.
The reason why publishers are so supportive of this is, as
you described, the total chaos that is out there. It is chaotic
and costly, and the bad thing is that, for all the chaos and
cost, at the end, a lot of young students still do not get the
materials on time.
So this is a great way to break through that clutter. While
we have 26 different Sates doing something, and the others all
have random approaches, this is a real focus. This makes sense,
and this is how we really can make sure that no child is left
behind.
Who could not be for the repository? It will also allow
smaller publishers to participate, because it is terribly
costly to deal with this whole random system. This would allow
independent and smaller publishers to consider getting into the
school materials business.
So what we want to say is that we are here, and we are
ready to do anything we can to help you move this. We thank you
so much for your dedication and the fact that you are having a
Friday hearing, which is historic in the Senate, and continuing
to work----
Senator Dodd. You know, you just cannot resist these House
Members. You invite them over, and they really want to poke us
in the eye at least once. [Laughter.]
Ms. Schroeder. We always lose our manners, don't we?
[Laugher.]
But this really shows your commitment, and I want to thank
you, and I will pass the microphone on, because we really want
to hear from the other witnesses. Please call on us 24/7. We
are ready to do whatever it takes to get this bill out.
Thanks again.
Senator Dodd. Thank you, Pat, so much. I will have some
questions for you in a few minutes about some things we need to
look at, but I am very grateful to you for all your terrific
work on this in the AAP.
And Pearce, we thank you for being here this morning
representing the publishers and one of the companies that will
be involved in this.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Schroeder may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Dodd. Jessie, we thank you. I have introduced you
already. You will have to pull the microphone close. My
colleague from South Carolina, Senator Thurmond, who is now
over 100 years old, is quite a fellow, and he calls that ``the
talking machine.'' So if you could bring that ``talking
machine'' a little closer so we can hear you.
Thank you, Jessie. We are anxious to hear your words.
Ms. Kirchner. Mr. Chairman and other members of the
committee, good morning. My name is Jessie Kirchner, and I will
be entering my senior year this fall at Guilford High School in
Guilford, CT.
I am involved in several school clubs and extracurricular
activities, including the national and French honor societies,
Safe Rides, and select choral and instrumental groups. I plan
to major in English and philosophy in college, with the goal of
eventually attending law school.
I am a Braille reader, and I am speaking in support of S.
2246, The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act: Making
Instructional Materials Available to All Students.
First, let me thank you for the opportunity and the
privilege to speak to you today about such important
legislation. In addition, I wish to especially thank my
Senator, Senator Dodd, for introducing this bill and for his
commitment to moving it forward. Hopefully, I can give you an
idea of how the current system works from a student's
perspective so you can understand what a positive impact this
bill will have on visually-impaired students across the
country.
Braille books required for the school year beginning in
September must be ordered by March of the previous school year.
Thus, planning begins in February, when we must determine which
courses we expect to take. Next, a list of required textbooks
is requested from next year's teachers. We determine which
books are not already available in Braille or on tape and order
them in Braille. A single Braille textbook may consists of over
30 volumes, of which this is the typical size--so 30 of those
could be a typical mathematics textbook, for instance.
Senator Dodd. Would you hold that up again, Jessie? You say
30 of those would be one math textbook.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes.
Senator Dodd. So that will give people an idea out there--
and by the way, I want to thank CSPAN for being here today to
cover this so that a broader audience can hear about it--but 30
of those for basically one math textbook, just to give people
an idea.
Ms. Kirchner. Yes.
Senator Dodd. Please go ahead.
Ms. Kirchner. They may take months to produce. Ordering
books in March should allow volumes to start arriving by the
beginning of the next school year.
The process sounds simple, but in reality it is really
complex. First, course descriptions for the next school year
are not normally available until after March, and course
scheduling is done even later. We must start the process ahead
of everyone else and may find out after ordering our books that
we have schedule conflicts. For instance, this year, I will be
unable to take wind ensemble because another course I would
like to take, Western civilization, is being offered during the
same period. Adding physics in place of wind ensemble may mean
not getting a physics textbook in time.
Sometimes the schedule conflict requires completing a
course during the first semester in a double period rather than
over the entire year in a single period. This actually happened
to me freshman year. My geometry book was in Braille, and
volumes were sent as they were completed, but they continually
arrived too late because the typist could not keep up with the
class pace. So I would get Volume 3 when I was supposed to be
getting Volume 5, for instance, and had no book for about 4
months.
Senator Dodd. But geometry is easy anyway, isn't it?
Ms. Kirchner. Oh, yes, definitely. [Laughter.] Better even
than algebra.
Senator Dodd. So why do you need a textbook, Jessie?
Ms. Kirchner. Yes, definitely. [Laughter.] Luckily, it did
not happen this year in pre-calculus.
Senator Dodd. That is even easier. [Laughter.]
Ms. Kirchner. Oh, yes.
But some courses are available to students only if they
qualify for them on the basis of a sufficiently high grade in
the prerequisite course. For example, I took pre-calculus this
past year and needed minimum of a B average to take calculus
next year. However, I could not wait for my final grade before
having to order my calculus book in March at a cost of $2,000.
If I do not take calculus, my school will have spent $2,000 for
nothing, and I still will have no math textbook to use in
September. But luckily, I am taking calculus, and the book is
all set, so it was a good thing.
Senator Dodd. Good.
Ms. Kirchner. Also, town budgets are passed, at least in
our town, in June. If requests for new textbooks are approved,
the books are purchased over the summer and arrive by
September--all except for the Braille versions. I know someone
who personally experienced this. By September, he had a math
book in Braille, but it was the wrong one. The new one had been
quickly ordered but could not be produced in time, and the
volumes kept arriving after the material had already been
covered, so the student's grades and self-esteem suffered, and
sadly, he thought that he was the problem because no one else
in the class was complaining.
In addition, some Braille textbooks are not available in
time because there is only a limited number of competent
Braille typists in the State. They must know the various
Braille codes. For example, math is typed in what is called
Nemeth code, standard English in literal code, and science text
in scientific code. If a good typist gets an order for three
books at once, he or she might not be able to finish them all
on schedule.
Moreover, books on tape are wonderful, but in general,
textbooks in Braille are preferable. Textbooks are ordered on
tape if they are available when a Braille copy is not. However,
turning to the same page the teacher is on in class is
impractical with tapes. And going back and looking up quotes
and other facts is very difficult.
In addition, tapes can also be defective, as I painfully
learned this past year. By the time I discovered that two
cassettes of my history book were blank, it was too late to
order new ones, so I had to take the quiz basically on my
notes. And the homework had to be done, so each night, I had to
scan pages from a printed copy into my computer before I could
start my homework. My sighted peers probably had much of their
assignment done in the time it took me to scan the pages.
Finally, without a textbook in class, we often have to rely
on friends, parents, and paraprofessionals to read materials to
us when we are perfectly capable of reading them ourselves. We
do not like to take our friends' time, because they have their
own work to do.
Passing this bill will solve the problems I have discussed
and make Braille textbooks available at the same time as
printed ones are available for my sighted peers. Furthermore,
the fact that books will be available electronically will allow
the option of downloading them into a Braille word processor or
laptop computer.
Although Braille hard copies of textbooks are preferable to
tapes, they are bulky and difficult to carry. The new
electronic format will give students the choice of obtaining
their Braille textbook in a hard copy or reading it in Braille
from a Braille word processor. The latter facilitates
portability and allows us to access information more quickly
and easily.
Overall, our time and attention will be more appropriately
focused on learning rather than on getting the information.
Again, thank you, Senator Dodd, for your leadership with
this critical legislation and for calling this hearing. Having
a textbook in class like everyone else should be a right, not a
privilege. To move us closer to this point, passage of The
Instructional Materials Accessibility Act is essential.
Senator Dodd. Jessie, you are terrific.
Do the rest of you want to testify now, or do you want to
just leave it there? [Laughter.] Aren't you glad to be
following that, Marc? We are happy that you are here, Marc.
Thank you, Jessie, very much. That was eloquent as always,
and I will hire you right now. You can be my lawyer. I am very
confident that you will be a great asset to whatever profession
you choose to go into.
Thank you for your eloquence today and your hard work. And
thanks to your parents, too, for the work they do.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kirchner may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Dodd. Marc?
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you very much, Senator Dodd.
I am Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of
the Blind, and I would like to say a few words of my statement
which has already been submitted.
Members of the National Federation of the Blind have first-
hand experience with the need for the legislation before you
today. All of our leaders and the vast majority of our members
are blind. In my own case, I read Braille. What would I have
done in school if my mother had not put other things aside and
taken the time to learn Braille herself so that she could
transcribe my books into Braille by hand for me?
Looking back on it, I was unusually fortunate. When she
could not produce a book for me in Braille, she would read it
to me. This was my experience, but it is not the present-day
experience of most blind students. The demands on families are
just too great, and training programs to teach families are
nonexistent.
On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed the latest
amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
declaring ``No child left behind'' as the preeminent national
policy in education. This was a commitment of our generation
made as a promise to all children in America. To keep this
promise for blind children, we need a new Federal law on
instructional materials production.
Books in Braille, speech, or large print are often provided
to blind students on a piecemeal basis and sometimes not
provided at all. I think the best demonstration is the previous
witness here. This happens because there is no uniform and
rationally organized system to have print editions of standard
textbooks created in formats other than standard print. In
former times, when most blind children attended State-run
schools, the schools could get together and agree on the books
that all of them would use, and the American Printing House for
the Blind would produce the books. Now, blind children study in
classrooms alongside sighted children. We expect them to learn
and to compete on equal terms. This means having the same
tools, the same textbooks, available at the same time. This is
an obligation of our educational system that must be kept, and
The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act is designed to do
just that.
The key to making this legislation work is the publishers'
agreement to produce an electronic version of each printed
textbook sold to any school district in America. This
electronic text will be deposited by the publishers in a
national distribution center where all school districts in the
country can obtain it.
This is a simple approach, but Federal legislation is
needed to put it into effect. That is where we come to you for
help.
The National Federation of the Blind, the Association of
American Publishers, representatives of States, textbooks
producers and others have reached consensus on the approach
needed and recommended in S. 2246. This bill includes
responsibilities of publishers of textbooks as well as for
educational programs at all levels, Federal, State and local.
Rather than placing all of the responsibility on States and
local schools as is now the case, along with the publishers,
this legislation creates a system that is simple to operate,
easy to understand, and effective for the students.
Schools will still obtain and produce books in Braille when
they are needed for each blind student, but an infrastructure
will at long last be in place to help them do it.
The Association of American Publishers and its president,
Pat Schroeder, deserve high praise for their constructive work
on behalf of the industry affected by this legislation. Also, I
want to thank you, Senator Dodd, for your leadership in
sponsoring S. 2246 and for moving the bill forward to
consideration. ``No child left behind'' means no blind child,
too, as you have said.
Schools and educators in every State need your help in
keeping this commitment. Members of the affected industry are
ready to step up to the plate to do their share. Now, at last,
with support provided by the Federal Government, we can see a
day when each blind child will actually have the chance for an
equal educational opportunity. That is what this bill is all
about.
The National Federation of the Blind urges you to enact it
into law this year, and I thank you very much for the
opportunity to participate in the hearing.
Senator Dodd. Marc, thank you so much, and we thank your
mother as well. She sounds like a remarkable woman.
Mr. Maurer. You would like her, Senator.
Senator Dodd. Yes, I think I would. I like her already,
just having heard what a dedicated parent she was.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Maurer may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Dodd. Barbara, we thank you for joining us and we
are anxious to receive your testimony.
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for inviting me here today.
I am Barbara McCarthy from Richmond, VA. I work with the
Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired, and I run an
instructional materials and resource center that produces
Braille and large-print textbooks for blind and visually-
impaired students.
What I am about to tell you and the purpose of this
legislation have not been a Senate priority. There are great
economic and international issues before you, and we all
understand and recognize that.
What I am going to tell you about, however, is the priority
within the community of blind and visually-impaired people and
the professionals who work with them.
Technology has opened many opportunities to provide all of
us with access to information. This legislation is a matter of
allowing technology to provide access to information.
Technology offers the potential to provide the materials that
all students, including those who are blind and visually-
impaired, must have in order to receive an equal quality
education. Ultimately, technology will allow for lower
materials cost, faster delivery, and better student
performance.
If I could have called this hearing, I would have invited
you all to Richmond to see what we do at the Library and
Resource Center this time of year. In fact, today, if you were
to visit any one of the materials centers that are located in
45 States in the country, you would see similar activity. And I
just want to explain the 26 Braille bills--those are 26 States
that have passed Braille bills, but there are 45 States that do
what I do at an instructional materials center.
At the Library and Resource Center in Richmond, we provide
Braille and large-print textbooks to all Virginia students who
are blind and visually-impaired, and that is about 550 students
who receive the textbooks. We serve quite a few more than
that--we serve about 1,300 students--but many of them do not
receive textbooks for various reasons; some of them are
infants, some of them are multiply handicapped and are not
reading.
We loan textbooks for the school year, and at the end of
every academic year, the books are returned and made available
to be loaned to another student for the next year. So it is
more of a centralized depository. We loan them out, they come
back, they go back out the next year. And there are many States
that operate a similar kind of activity.
The other thing that would be interesting for you to know
is that the Association of Instructional Resource Centers
actually has a sort of standing agreement which we have had for
about 20 years that we share textbooks. During the school year
and this time of year, when we are gearing up for the next
school year, if someone from another State needs a book that I
have, and I do not need it, I would give it to them or loan it
to them for the next school year.
This time of year, we are busy producing Braille and large-
print textbooks for the next school year. Most books have
already been ordered and will likely be ready when school
begins. However, last week, I received orders for five books to
be produced in Braille--two algebra, a calculus book, a
geometry book, and this biology book. And if I could--I do not
know if anybody can come and get it--but it might be
interesting for you to be looking at this book as I am talking
about it, because it is quite a lengthy book.
June is really very late in the process to receive orders
for Braille books--that is not going into the record, by the
way; I do need to take it home with me--but June is really
considered very late to be ordering these Braille books.
I was able to find people to transcribe the math books that
I just cited, but the biology book that you are looking at
right now, I have not been able to find someone for. The other
four math books will likely not be ready when school starts. If
I am lucky, I will have a couple of volumes, but that is not
even a guarantee that I will.
This biology book, I am still looking for someone to do it,
and by the way, if there is anybody in the audience who wants
to transcribe it, see me after the hearing.
Regardless of whether I receive the book early or late,
there is a student who needs this book in Braille and will
suffer without it when school starts.
Orders for textbooks for the next school year should be
received, I say, no later than April 30, but I really like
Jessie's March date much better, and I think I am going to go
to that one. The point of this is that it really takes a long
time to get the process going and allow us time to find people
to transcribe the books and produce them. Any order received
after this date is really at risk of not being ready when
school begins.
When the order is received, we search our own database to
see if we have either produced the book ourselves or have
purchased it from another transcribing agency in the past. If
we have not produced the book, and it is an order for a large-
print book, we ask for a copy of the book from the school
system and we enlarge it using copy machines. And I might point
out that that is rather poor quality. We can make a good copy
of the text itself, but when you start talking about insets and
inserts and graphs and charts in different colors--if any of
you have seen a textbook recently, they are all about visual
effect; we are the TV generation, and they are meant to really
``glow'' at the kids, so they are more about visual display
than anything else. Those things are very difficult to make a
nice copy of.
If the order is for the Braille textbook, we search the
American Printing House for the Blind's national Louis database
for the title. If it is not available from another source
somewhere else in the country, we will transcribe the book
using our staff, or ask one of our volunteers to transcribe the
book, or pay someone to transcribe the book.
In point of fact, the volunteerism is really dropping off--
I am sure you all are aware of that--and our volunteer corps is
much smaller than it was 10 or 15 years ago.
The biology text I have with me today will take
approximately 9 months to transcribe. Most transcribers work on
several books at one time and regularly provide volumes of
Braille to stay ahead of the class syllabus, and that is pretty
much what Jessie was referring to. they do take several
projects on at one time. They have to do that whether they are
getting paid for it and this is their livelihood, or there are
just so many books and not enough transcribes, but they work on
several, often three or four, at a time.
A book this size, which is actually 1,183 pages, would
translate into 4,732 pages in Braille. That is where you get
those 30 volumes. The average cost to produce this book into
Braille if I were to pay someone to do it or do it with my own
staff time would be $16,562. That would be attributed to the
fact that this would be a manual transcription; we would be
getting publisher files; somebody would be keying the text into
the computer--we do use computers, and there is Braille
translation software; we are not back in the old days where we
are grinding it out on a Braille-writer, so there are some
advantage to using the computer, but it is still a very slow
process.
In my State, we purchase probably 250 books from outside
sources, we transcribe 100 titles a year in Braille--it is a
lot of Braille--we purchase 250 copies and then probably engage
25 outside transcribing agencies and pay them to do books for
me.
The good thing is that we reuse those books; it is not an
investment that you have made--or, hopefully, you end up
reusing the book.
This national practice for producing books in alternative
format that I have described is a process that requires
everyone in the chain to do his or her part on time and
accurately. One break in the chain, and the books will be late
for the beginning of school.
The process for providing textbooks in adapted format is
dependent upon many factors which determine if the students
receive books on time. Jessie alluded to many of those factors,
but let me give you a few more.
If the students are assigned subject areas and classes in
time, prior to May--and again, Jessie talked about that--if the
school has identified next year's textbooks; if the course is a
one-semester course, and it is going to be a first semester
one-semester course, that throws everything totally out of
whack--we get the order in April, but the whole books needs to
be done by September; if the school can provide copies of the
textbooks for us to use in production--that is a big thing; if
they have just adopted those books at their budget time in
June, they probably do not even have a book to give us, so that
is always a big challenge and issue; if the book orders are
placed by April 30; if there are transcribers available to
produce the book in Braille; if the student's schedule does not
change when school begins; if a student does not move
unexpectedly into the school system--somebody may show up on
the first day of school that you were not counting on, a blind
student, no book--what do you do? If the books is used in the
front-to-back order--and what I mean by that is start with
Chapter 1 and go through the book, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5--many teachers
do not teach that way anymore. They jump around in the book. So
we will start transcribing at Chapter 1 unless somebody tells
us otherwise. It could be, depending on the subject, that the
teacher is going to start in the middle of the book. If we have
not transcribed the middle of the book, that child is pretty
much out of luck. And then, last, if the school system is able
to provide a syllabus for us.
The process that is promoted within the scope of this
legislation is very different from the one that we currently
use. It requires far less time, costs less, and will ensure
that blind students will receive their textbooks at the same
time as other students.
As soon as an order is received for the book, we would
search our database. If we do not have it, we would check the
national database that this legislation creates to see if the
file is listed as available. If it is, we will download the
file, print the book in large print, in what will be excellent-
quality text, or translate the data using Braille software and
emboss the book into Braille, or provide the book in the
student's other chosen format, which could be electronic for
use with the computer, or audio-digital, or for use with an
electronic Braille display or a note-taker, as Jessie alluded
to.
If the book is not available, we will request the
electronic file from the publisher to be deposited in the
center. Once deposited, we will download the file. The cost for
my resource center to produce this biology book that you are
looking at right now in Braille using this proposed process
would be approximately $785--that is it, compared to $16,000--
and could easily be produced within a week, not 9 months.
If this legislation is passed, 3 years from now, I will not
struggle to find a means by which this biology textbook is put
into Braille--and that means if it is passed this year--we
still have a 3-year get-up, set-up, and be ready for this.
When the student in my State moves to Fairfax from Newport
News in the middle of the school year, or when the student is
doing so well that she changes classes first semester into an
honors class, the books can be available.
On behalf of the members of the Association of
Instructional Resource Centers, representing every State in the
country, we believe that this legislation offers the single
greatest contribution to blind and visually-impaired children's
futures. It will ensure that they really do receive the same
education as their sighted peers.
Access to information opens doors. This legislation is a
door opener. Children's lives will be changed, and we will all
be saying: ``Mmm-ahh.''
[The prepared statement of Ms. McCarthy may be found in
additional material.]
Senator Dodd. I like that. That is great testimony,
Barbara, and very, very helpful.
I probably should have in my opening comments--because
there is always an assumption that everybody knows everything
about the background and data on these things--I just want to
share with the committee--and these numbers, obviously, people
sometimes argue with some of them--but when you get into the
areas where you start talking about visually blind, visually
impaired, and blind, the numbers become a bit like an accordion
depending on how you look at all of this.
But I just want to share with the audience what we are
talking about here. There are more than one million people in
this country who are blind--about 1.1 million is the number
that I have. About 75,000 people become blind each year one way
or another in this country. Every 7 minutes, someone in America
becomes blind or visually-impaired. There are approximately 5.5
million elderly individuals who are visually-impaired, legally
blind, or blind. There are approximately 95,000 visually-
impaired or blind students in the United States. Is that number
right, Barbara? Does that number hold up with you?
Ms. McCarthy. Yes.
Senator Dodd. Of that number--and this is where I want to
raise it, and Marc, if you would, I want you to talk a little
bit about this--of those 95,000 students--and obviously, this
is not just about students here, and I presume that student
number is just elementary and secondary, and does not include
higher education and continuing----
Ms. McCarthy. That is elementary and secondary.
Senator Dodd. So the numbers move up--because obviously, in
the 21st century economy, the notion of being a student for 12
years or 16 years is an antiquated student. You are going to
have to be a student all your life, or at least all the
productive years of your life, if you are going to maintain an
active participation in the economy of the country.
Approximately 32 percent of legally blind working-age
Americans are employed in this country, which tells you that we
obviously have a problem here between education and employment.
Now--and this is the thing I want to drive home--of the
95,000 elementary and secondary age students who are visually-
impaired or blind, about 5,500 use Braille--that is the best
number I have.
This bill is going to cost about $1 million a year. You
cannot find a bill that talks about $1 million around here.
These numbers do not show up, I promise you. We have spent that
already this morning on lights around here, I presume.
Actually, it is a little more, because there is some start-up
money in this bill. So there is about $5 million that is
available to help the States get going. That money disappears
after a few years, and then it is $1 million. So if you want to
use the population of 1.1 million, it is about $1 per person in
order to make this difference that we are talking about.
The issue that is raised--one thing I like about our bill
is that we have great flexibility in the bill; Braille is
obviously a part of it, but there are other means that can be
used--I am wondering why we are not doing a better job of
promoting Braille. I had an intern from New Mexico who was
blind--or, she was actually visually-impaired; it was a
degenerative loss, so it was a growing problem--and she wanted
to go to law school and had not learned Braille, so she had to
go back and learn Braille, because it would be hard to go
through law school under today's circumstances--maybe with
later technology you could, or with readers and so forth, but
she felt she needed that--she had to go back, and it was far
more difficult for her at age 23 or 24 to go back and acquire
that skill.
Jessie, how old were you when you learned Braille?
Ms. Kirchner. About 5.
Senator Dodd. And obviously, the difference learning it at
that age as opposed to later--it is much harder.
Marc, as part of the difficulty that more people have not--
and I know this is a debate within the community, too, and a
longstanding debate, about use and nonuse of Braille--is part
of the difficulty for the very reason that we are here, the
fact that there have not been the reading materials in Braille,
that therefore, the feeling of the necessity to have a Braille
skill is not there? Do you get the point I am trying to make? I
am not doing it very well. Explain to me why we do not have a
greater percentage of the population that reads Braille.
Mr. Maurer. Thank you very much, Senator.
Although there was a considerable debate about the
importance of Braille, I think there is a greater consensus
about that today than there has ever been in the field of
blindness. I believe there is virtually unanimous opinion that
Braille is important.
Now, there are not enough teachers, there are not enough
books. If you cannot get the books, the teachers do not have
any tools to use to teach, and if the teachers do not have
students who have the books, they lose the capacity for
Braille.
I read Braille every day. If I did not read it for 2 or 3
or 4 years, would I know it? The answer is likely that I would
know less of it. But I read it every day, so I have no problem
keeping up with it.
If the teacher cannot get the books, and if the student
therefore does not use the books, the teacher's skill in
Braille, which usually for sighted teachers is taught in
college, those teachers are going to use the capacity for it.
So we need this material because we need it for the
teachers as well as for the students. A little over 10 percent
of students read Braille, but the statistics--and there is an
argument about whose statistics you use, as you pointed out,
Senator--but the statistics indicate that for those who have a
capacity in Braille, 85 to 90 percent of those people will have
good jobs.
Senator Dodd. Yes, that was my question in a sense. For law
school, I presume, or English literature, and so forth, I can
understand where a reader or some audio equipment would be
fine. I cannot imagine in a math class how you could possibly
get along, or a science class where you need to be looking at
graphs and charts and so forth--how you could explain orally to
someone a graph or a chart.
Jessie, am I making any sense with this? Share with us your
thoughts--if you have Braille skill as opposed to not having
it, how limited is your curricula, your academic reach?
Ms. Kirchner. It is definitely preferable to have Braille,
as I have stated, although I did use my biology book on tape
last year, but I was not so dependent on the graphs and charts;
we did not have to focus on them. If we did, I had my
transcriber produce them in a format I could feel tactility, or
I asked my teacher about them. But it is definitely preferable.
The fact that I hear there is a growing trend in some areas of
literacy or at least people being less willing to learn Braille
as a medium of learning is quite disturbing, as I find Braille
the most useful medium for educational purposes. If I have to
order tape, I do it, but I always prefer to use Braille
because, as I stated earlier, tapes are very impractical, and
just finding the right one is a chore. So it is disturbing if
people are less willing to learn Braille. It will always be
extremely important, especially, as you have stated, for
science and math courses.
Senator Dodd. So if there are parents out there with a
newborn child, your recommendation is when the appropriate time
arrives, if at all possible, have that child learn the Braille?
Ms. Kirchner. Definitely, if their degree of vision is
sufficiently----
Senator Dodd. Yes. I want to get back to some of the things
we are going to do with this, but it occurs to me that one of
the side benefits of this, if we agree with the point that
Jessie has just made that, everything else being equal under
the circumstances, we really should be encouraging the skill in
Braille, that one of the benefits of this bill will be to
promote the teaching and the learning of Braille and that that
could have the effective, given your numbers, Marc--if my
numbers are correct that 32 percent is the level of employment,
and if we are talking about 85 percent with people who have
Braille skills, it seems to me that one of the benefits of this
will be to promote Braille as a technology or as a skill. Is
that a fair assumption that I can make if this bill becomes
law?
Mr. Maurer. Very fair, Senator, and it will also promote
employment and all kinds of independent opportunities for blind
people because of the results of employment.
Senator Dodd. Pat, I wonder if you could explain to us why
the process takes so long. Barbara and Jessie have talked about
when you have to make the request and so forth, but it might be
helpful just as a practical matter--very few people understand
the publishing business--to explain why it does take so long.
Ms. Schroeder. Well, we have these things called
``formats,'' and here we go through a journey of formats, but
the 26 different States that ask for these, many of them ask
for different electronic formats. So for the publisher, you are
producing the book one way, but then you are required to do an
electronic format, but then you may have to do it in several
other different kinds of electronic formats for the others that
are around.
But probably none of these is as sophisticated as we would
like. No one could do a better job than Barbara did explaining
how time-intensive and labor-intensive it is to even take these
formats and transfer them, and some are more sophisticated than
others, as I understand--Barbara is nodding, so I hope I am not
on the wrong format road----
Senator Dodd. Please jump in, Barbara.
Ms. Schroeder. But one of the good things about this,
Senator, is that on a parallel track going at the very same
time, in the year 2000, this collaborative national effort
began with publishers and Braille experts and Braille software
developers and everything else, trying to find a format that is
going to expedite this process, I believe.
Obviously, we cannot say if this bill passes that that
would be the format that would be agreed upon, but the very
good news is that a lot of spade work has been done trying to
see if there is not a format that makes Barbara's task much
easier and that makes everyone's task much easier--and I assume
it is the software doing a lot more of the work that the
individual now does, and that is why she is saying you could do
the biology book in a much shorter period of time.
Now, Barbara, did I translate that correct?
Ms. McCarthy. You did a very good job. I do not need to say
much more than that, but I think one thing to point out is the
fact that this new software that publishers will be using is
going to be something that we can use to produce many different
formats. We have talked about that, and Braille is one of them.
This is an amazing piece of technology if you think about it,
and the development is well under way for this, but it is going
to allow us to basically take from one source and be able to
produce digital audio if that is what the student prefers or we
need it for some particular reason, be able to produce hard-
copy Braille. We can also use the material electronically on a
computer with a speech synthesizer--in other words, a screen
reader--if the individual prefers to listen to the material on
the computer; it is certainly a lot more compact that way. And
then, last of all is the ability to be able to use a Braille
note-taker or a Braille display, which is just an electronic
Braille device. It would be no different from a sighted person
using a computer, and you can just basically scroll through the
text that way.
So this is a very flexible technology that we are talking
about, and in terms of why the reduced time, well, all of the
text will be entered already, so all that I have to do is take
the text, translate it, and I can do what I want with it.
Senator Dodd. You anticipated my next question in a sense.
What we have tried to do with our bill is to anticipate the
tremendous changes that we cannot even imagine that will occur
in the coming years. I read the other day that video stores
will no longer sell the stuff--they are into the DVD. It drives
me crazy. The wonderful days of having one piece of technology
that you knew would work for the rest of your life are now
gone. Now you go out to buy something, and the temptation is to
wait a couple of years because something else is going to come
out that will change all that.
So the good news here is that what we are trying to
create--and I think you have said it well--is the great
flexibility and change through technology that can come that
will be able to accommodate those kinds of opportunities that
do not exist today. That is really the key thing, and that is
very, very helpful.
And that was my second question to you, Pat, as well, and
you have covered that ground.
Ms. Schroeder. Absolutely.
Senator Dodd. Jessie, I am sitting here trying to imagine,
knowing how well you are doing in class, but I am trying to
envision myself how you were able to complete your assignments
and study for exams without a textbook. Is there some secret I
should have known? [Laughter.] How did you do that?
Ms. Kirchner. Internet is definitely a Godsend. I have been
fortunate to have had a textbook the majority of the time.
Geometry freshman year, I was fortunate to have had a very
understanding teacher who was able to get supplemental
worksheets to my transcriber in sufficient time for me to do
those book exercises, and then, if I still did not understand
after not having read the lesson in the book, I would just ask
my teacher for extra assistance after school. I actually did
very well in the course.
As far as history, for the couple times I did not have the
required text, I would explain that to my teacher, and we would
work things out, whether it would be taking the quiz a day
later so that I could scan my 40 pages or so into the computer
and read them aloud with my screen reader, or there are notes
available for the particular textbook that I could use as well.
I generally have not had problems overall and have been
very luck in that. But I have known people who have had a very,
very difficult time without a textbook.
Senator Dodd. Again, you have been over some of this, but
choosing one format over another and the type of technology
necessary, can you give me some idea, Jessie, how you do choose
one format over another? I know you prefer the Braille, but
obviously, there are times when it is not available or there
may actually be another format. Are there times when another
format is actually preferable to you?
Ms. Kirchner. As I mentioned, electronic format is
ultimately the best in that besides having the Braille in front
of you--Braille overall is preferable to tape just because you
like to see the words in front of you, particularly if you have
difficult vocabulary words that you do not know how to spell,
you like to see those in front of you--and the electronic
format with the Braille supersedes the hard copy, because you
can go through it very fast. You have the capability that
anyone has with any personal computer. You can scroll through
and find different paragraphs, you can bookmark different
chapters if you need to, you can quickly jump through pages
upon pages. I have not had to order a hard copy of an English
novel for I do not know how many months just because I have
been fortunate to have been able to download a lot of them from
the Web. So that has been great, because I can just put them on
my note-taker, and she says ``Jump to Chapter 3,'' and I just
do the global find command and type in ``Jump to Chapter 3,''
and it's great, especially for group work, when you have to go
looking for quotations to support a certain theme. So
generally, electronic format is the best, and it is really
exciting that this bill is going to promote such a format as
well as Braille, because those are the two primary formats that
are preferable.
Senator Dodd. That is very, very exciting.
Ms. McCarthy. Could I just add one thing to what Jessie
said with regard to how you select which format?
Senator Dodd. Yes.
Ms. McCarthy. One of the things that we know is that if you
are learning a foreign language, you really have to have that
in Braille. You can learn to speak a foreign language with the
tape or electronically, but unless you can actually see the
words, if you will, there is no way that you are going to
become fluent in a foreign language. And we have already talked
about the math. But that just brings up the importance of why
the ability to have that hard copy for some things. And you
were very astute, Senator Dodd, to mention that. There will
always be a need for Braille.
Senator Dodd. Now, Jessie, on the process that you
presently go through, or the people like yourself in schools
around the country, what is the present process that you go
through to get a textbook so that you can read? What happens?
You described that March is when you do it, but what is the
process involved today? Is there are a central location like
Virginia's Library and Resource Center, or how does it work?
Ms. Kirchner. There are certain resources that you
continually generally refer to when searching for a textbook.
In terms of books, in terms of math textbooks, we have a
similar agency in Connecticut that does that kind of thing. I
have a State teacher for the visually-impaired with whom I work
to make sure that I have the books I need, and she makes sure
in March that--for instance, this year, we know that I am
taking calculus, we hope I qualify for calculus, fortunately, I
did, so we decide in March that I am going to quality for
calculus and that I will need the book. Then, she goes to our
equivalent of the resource center and asks if they have it
available. In this case, they already did. We still had to pay
a substantial sum just to buy the book, I think, or at least to
borrow it. But in some cases like last year, the book actually
had to be Brailled, and that would cost even more, and as I
said, the volumes would start trickling in by September, and
you would hope that you would get the right ones as you needed
them.
As far as other books that depend less heavily on symbols
and diagrams, like English literature books, they are usually
available on tape or from another library, and you just have to
know which libraries to contact. Recording for the Blind is a
big one, and the National Library Service for the Blind here in
DC. is actually a primary resource for such books. So I have
learned to use those resources primarily by myself.
Senator Dodd. Do you ever contact the publisher directly?
Ms. Kirchner. No, I have not had to do that just because I
did not know they had any direct involvement with that kind of
thing--but you will, apparently, through this legislation.
Senator Dodd. Yes, Pat?
Ms. Schroeder. If I might, Senator, one of the things that
I think is confusing here is like when you heard that it took
$2,000, that $2,000 is not paid to the publisher. the publisher
creates the electronic file, and they create lots of different
forms of electronic files depending on the State or the region
and what they are requesting. But then, converting that file to
Braille or whatever it is, either they do it with volunteers,
as Barbara has explained, or you have to pay, or somehow, and
that becomes a huge additional cost.
So that is why this is so chaotic and spread out, and that
is why this bill just makes a huge amount of sense, because the
publishers will all create one form of electronic file, and
hopefully it is going to be this new advanced technology they
are all working on now, to try to put it together so it will be
much cheaper, then, to produce and get the materials out.
So the reason why you would probably not contact the
publisher directly at the moment is that you would get the
file, and then, what are you going to do with the file? You
have got to convert it to the next format.
Senator Dodd. OK.
Mr. Maurer. Senator, Jessie mentioned a moment ago a note-
taker. This is one, this device here, and as you observe it, it
has keys on it to let you get at the files in the device and
also to move it around. It is called a ``Braille light,'' and
this is a Braille display. It brings up the information which
is stored in here. There are many megabytes of information that
can be put into it; several books can be stored in this small--
it can be easily put into a briefcase and carried--and it makes
the information available either auditorially or in Braille.
Part of what this bill will do is provide a file which is
formatted in such a way--not all of them will work with this--
that these note-takers--this is one version of it and a good
version--can use the material from the textbook publishers and
provide it into the hands of the students.
Senator Dodd. That is incredible. Who makes that piece of
equipment?
Mr. Maurer. This one is produced by Freedom Scientific,
which is a company out of Florida.
Senator Dodd. Very good.
Barbara, how much time again from the time the teacher
changes the textbook is the present situation for your center
before you can get something in Braille or electronic format?
Ms. McCarthy. That really is dependent upon what time of
year the material is ordered. If the material is being ordered
now, and this is the end of June, for the beginning of the
school year, which for many school systems is August, sometime
in August--that is less than 2 months--we may be able to get a
piece of the beginning of the book to the student. One thing
that we keep talking about is the fact that the students are
getting parts of the book. They are not getting the entire
book. They are not getting Chapters 1 through 15 all at one
time. They are trickling in as they are completed by the
transcribers. But in reality, if you had one person sit down
and do nothing else but transcribe Jessie's calculus book--no
other books; that was their main job--I say, ``I am going to
pay you to Braille this book until it is done; how long would
that take?''--aside from the fact that that person would
probably lose his or her mind, because it is very tedious to do
this hour after hour, it probably could be done in 3 months
from start to finish, and that is a real guesstimate, because
we rarely do books that way.
On the other hand, if, during the end of the first semester
of the school year, a teacher orders a book for the second
semester for the student, we have more transcribers available
to us that time of year--they are finishing up some of the work
that they have started--and we may be able to get somebody to
transcribe something rather quickly at that time of year. It is
really contingent on so many factors, and that is the big
problem It is not really straightforward at all. It depends on
when and what and who.
Senator Dodd. And Murphy's law probably applies.
Ms. McCarthy. And Murphy's law, absolutely.
Senator Dodd. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Ms. McCarthy. No question.
Senator Dodd. Well, this has been excellent testimony. I
cannot thank all of you enough. I am going to leave the record
open for a few days because we have staff here for other
members who may have some additional questions that I did not
think of to raise with you. So we will leave the record open to
respond.
I have a long list of organizations that I will not read,
but suffice it to say there are about 25 or 30 here, various
groups, various State and national organizations, who are
supporting this legislation, and I think your testimony today
is going to substantially enhance our opportunities.
We are talking about a very small commitment financially
that can make a huge difference, as I have heard you, not just
today but for many, many years to come, where we can really
break down some barriers and, as you properly said, Barbara,
open some doors that need not remain closed, not in this day
and age with the technology that is available.
So I am going to be eternally grateful to all of you and
very, very grateful for your work.
And I cannot resist repeating again to you, Pat, and to the
American Association of Publishers, that without your support,
we really would not be able to do this. Everyone deserves
support. Jessie, having listened to a bunch of adults talk
about this is fine, but actually hearing from a student how it
work, I cannot tell you what a difference you have made by
being here today. You represent almost 100,000 students, and in
fact, as I said earlier, everyone is a student now and will be,
but you have done a great job of explaining the value of this
particular effort and what a difference it can make. And I
think all of us are deeply proud of the fact that even under
the present system which is cumbersome, to put it mildly, how
well you have done and what a source of pride you must be to
your parents and teachers and others. So we commend you for
your terrific work.
Marc, you are always such a champion, and we thank you.
Barbara, I am so impressed with what you have done in
Virginia. How lucky the people of Virginia are to have you in
their camp, fighting for them.
So I am very grateful to all of you, and I just need you
now to ring the bells of some of my colleagues around here.
This is what I would call a slam-dunk. We can have huge
arguments around here about matters that are very difficult to
resolve--this is not one of them, or should not be. So I am
very, very hopeful that in the coming days here on this
committee, with Thad Cochran, who has been a great help and has
been terrific on these kinds of issues--we have worked so
closely on them over the years, along with the efforts to Tom
Petri and George Miller in the House--that we will be able to
get something done here before the calendar of the legislative
year is completed.
With that, I thank all of you for being here and look
forward to your continuing involvement.
This committee will stand adjourned until further call of
the chair.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Prepared Statement of Patricia Schroeder
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I want to thank you
for inviting me to appear here today on behalf of the Association of
American Publishers (``AAP'') to discuss S.2246, the proposed
``Instructional Materials Accessibility Act of 2002'' (``IMAA''), and
to briefly explain the perspective of book publishers regarding the
issue of ensuring that elementary and secondary school students who are
blind or have other print disabilities get timely access to
instructional materials in the specialized formats they need.
AAP is the national trade association for the U.S. book and journal
publishing industry, representing some 300 commercial and nonprofit
companies and organizations that publish literary works in virtually
every area of human interest. Most of the major book publishers in the
U.S. are AAP members. including the Nation's leading educational
publishers, who produce textbooks and other instructional materials for
all grade levels.
publishers support passage of the imaa
Imagine that, at the beginning of the school year, each student in
the class except your child has received their textbooks. Further
imagine that your child won't receive his or her textbooks for two,
four, or even six months after everyone else, or quite possibly won't
receive them at all.
This is the reality that thousands of blind or print-disabled
students must deal with every year, as they are forced to wait for
copies of the textbooks in Braille or in other specialized formats that
these students are able to use.
But the IMAA is intended to make sure that blind or print-disabled
students receive their textbooks in timely fashion, including those who
need them in specialized formats suitable for users who are blind or
have other print disabilities. AAP applauds Senators Dodd and Cochran
for their leadership in introducing this legislation.
The IMAA would significantly improve access for blind students, and
other students with print disabilities. to print instructional
materials used in elementary and secondary schools. by creating a
coordinated and efficient system for acquiring and distributing such
materials in the form of electronic files suitable for timely
conversion into a variety of specialized formats.
Converting print textbooks into Braille and other specialized
formats is a complex process that sometimes takes months to complete.
Depending on the length and complexity of the textbook, it can take a
publisher as long as three months to produce an electronic file of the
instructional material suitable for conversion into specialized
formats. It can take another four to nine months for those engaged in
the conversion process to convert those files to Braille or other
specialized formats, proof the work, and then produce it in the final
form used by students. One of the biggest benefits of the IMAA will be
the establishment of a system that hopefully will speed up the process
of converting textbooks into specialized formats, so that blind or
print-disabled students receive their textbooks at the same time as
their sighted classmates.
AAP SUPPORTS CREATION OF A NATIONAL ELECTRONIC FILE FORMAT FOR
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Currently, twenty-six states have laws requiring publishers to
provide state or local education agencies with electronic files
suitable for converting print instructional materials into Braille
versions. Depending upon which states use a particular textbook and
what requirements each state has enacted, publishers may be required to
produce a conversion file in as many as six different file formats
(i.e., HTML, SGML, ICADD22, Microsoft Word, RTF and ASCII), with ASCII
being the one most commonly-required.
Unfortunately, the file formats actually used by publishers to
produce textbooks and other print instructional materials are far more
complex than any of the state required formats and generally unsuitable
for use in conversion to specialized formats. This means that
publishers must track and comply with diverse state laws, and go
through an expensive, time-consuming process to convert their
publishing files into formats that are of no use to their publishing
operations. ``Worse yet, the state-required formats--especially ASCII--
are not even well-suited for efficient specialized-format conversion
and typically require Braille transcribers to spend many hours manually
``tagging'' or re-formatting the publisher-provided files before they
can be used with conversion software. As a result, publishers spend a
substantial amount of time and money to comply with the state
requirements, but the resulting Braille textbooks often don't arrive
for timely use by the blind or print-disabled student.
The proposed rulemaking under IMAA for producing a ``national
electronic file format'' for use in the conversion process is not
intended to lock-in any particular technology product, but instead is
expected to result in the adoption of an XML-based format of the kind
that publishers are evolving toward with their nascent ``ebook''
products and that the Library of Congress is already developing for the
next generation of digital talking books. The purpose of the rulemaking
is to eventually make it easier for everyone--State and local education
agencies, publishers, Braille software developers, and Braille
transcribers--to work with the conversion file by facilitating a
transition process toward an optimal format for everyone involved in
its use.
A file format that is more highly structured than ASCII will
require far less manual intervention to convert to specialized formats.
Publishers won't have to convert their materials to several different
file formats and Braille software developers won't need to spend
countless hours manipulating many different types of files. Braille
specialists will then have the time to use their unique expertise in
formatting and proofing files, so that high-quality Braille will be the
end result. Students will benefit because the national file format will
eliminate needless steps in scanning and reformatting files and the
student will receive his, her book faster.
Efforts are well underway to develop an optimal file format for use
with assistive technology. In 2000, a collaborative national effort,
the Joint Technology Task Force (``JTTF'') was created. Consisting of
publishers. Braille experts. Braille software developers and other
technology experts in the visually-impaired community, the purpose of
the JTTF is to facilitate the testing and use of technologies for
converting publisher's electronic files to the optimal format and the
utilization of those files so that students will receive textbooks at
the same time as their sighted peers. It is believed the optimal format
will be the ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 standard Specifications for the
Digital Talking Book. This standard was ratified by the National
Information Standards Organization (NISO) and approved by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) on March 6, 2002. Two of the JTTF's
main goals are to analyze the ANSI NISO file format to determine its
suitability for converting textbook content into Braille and other
specialized formats, and to promote and demonstrate to producers of
accessible books the efficiency and benefits of using publisher files
in the ANSI, NISO format.
AAP SUPPORTS ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL REPOSITORY FOR ELECTRONIC FILES
USED IN CONVERSION
The current system of providing the electronic files to twenty-six
states with diverse file format and other legal requirements is an
expensive and cumbersome process for publishers. Publishers put a great
deal of time, effort, and money into developing the necessary business
plans to make the intermediary publishing file available in the format
a state requires. For some smaller publishers, the costs and burdens
entailed in this process may, as a practical matter, prohibit them from
competing for textbook adoption in some markets. Having a ``one-stop''
national repository to which they would submit the files for
availability to any state or local education agency that requires them
would greatly ease the compliance burden for publishers, eliminate
substantial duplication of effort, and result in more students having
quicker access to instructional materials in the specialized formats
they need.
The IMAA would provide for the establishment of a National
Instructional Materials Access Center to serve as a ``one-stop''
central repository for the publisher-provided electronic files in order
to make the files more efficiently available to those responsible for
using them to convert print instructional materials into Braille and
other specialized formats. The Access Center would not directly engage
in the conversion process. but would be responsible for coordinating
the acquisition and distribution of electronic files of core
instructional materials for conversion. The Access Center would also
develop and administer procedures for ensuring the technical quality of
the submitted files and securely maintaining them.
AAP SUPPORTS STATEWIDE PLANS AND CAPACITY GRANTS TO ENSURE THAT BLIND
OR PRINT-DISABLED STUDENTS OBTAIN TIMELY ACCESS TO INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS IN SPECIALIZED FORMATS
Blind and print disabled students live in every state, not just in
the twenty-six states with Braille laws. Even with a state law,
publishers understand that some states don't have the funds to provide
materials in specialized formats for their students. That is why
capacity-building grants would be provided under the IMMA. These grants
would be used to help states facilitate the timely conversion of
publisher-provided electronic files into Braille or other specialized
formats, upgrade conversion-related software and hardware, and obtain
training for those engaged in the conversion process.
CONCLUSION
Publishers and representatives from national blind advocacy
organizations have been working over a period of several years to
develop a mutually agreeable and practical solution to the problem of
blind students receiving their textbooks on time. and we all strongly
support the IMAA. Providing a ``level playing field'' for blind and
print-disabled students by giving them access to instructional
materials will open up many new opportunities for those individuals.
Prepared Statement of Jessie Kirchner
Mr. Chairman and other Members of the Committee: My name is Jessie
Kirchner, and I live at 45 Dromara Road in Guilford, Connecticut. This
fall, I will be entering my senior year at Guilford High School. I am a
Braille reader and am speaking in support of S.2246, the Instructional
Materials Accessibility Act: Making Instructional Materials Available
to All Students.
First, let me thank you for the opportunity and the privilege to
speak to you today about such important legislation. In addition, I
want to especially thank my senator, Senator Dodd, for introducing this
bill and for his commitment to moving it forward. Hopefully, I can give
you an idea of how the current system works from a student's
perspective, so that you can understand what a positive impact this
bill will have on visually impaired students across the country.
Since the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act was introduced
in April of this year, I have thought a lot about how this bill will
improve the situation for blind and visually impaired students. I have
spoken to many students about this bill, and will attend the National
Federation of the Blind Convention in early July, where I expect to
speak with many more. Because I will graduate high school before the
provisions of this bill take effect, it will not directly benefit me.
Nevertheless, on behalf of blind students who follow me, I strongly
urge passage of the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act this
year.
Equal access to education for all students requires equal access to
textbooks. Unfortunately, many blind and visually impaired students sit
in classrooms without books, while their sighted peers, books in hand,
are able to follow along with the daily lesson. Even with the best
planning, Braille textbooks frequently do not arrive when needed, if at
all.
Braille books required for the school year beginning in September
must be ordered by March of the previous school year. Thus, planning
begins in February, when we must determine which courses we expect to
take. Next, a list of required textbooks is requested from next year's
teachers. We determine which books are not already available in Braille
or on tape, and order them in Braille. A single Braille textbook may
consist of over 30 volumes and may take months to produce. Ordering
books in March should allow volumes to start arriving by the beginning
of the next school year.
The process sounds simple, but in reality it is not! First, course
descriptions for the next school year are not normally available until
after March, and course scheduling is done even later. We must start
the process ahead of everyone else, and may find out after ordering our
books that we have schedule conflicts. For instance, this year I will
be unable to take Wind Ensemble because another course I would like to
take, Western Civilization, is being offered during the same period.
Adding Physics in place of Wind Ensemble may mean not getting a physics
textbook in time.
Sometimes the schedule conflict requires completing a course during
the first semester in a double period rather than over the entire year
in a single period. This happened to me freshman year. My geometry book
was typed in Braille and volumes sent as they were completed. However,
they continually arrived too late, as the typist could not keep up with
the class pace!
Secondly, some courses are available to students only if they
qualify for them on the basis of a sufficiently high grade in the
prerequisite course. For example, I took pre-calculus this past year
and needed a minimum of a B average to take calculus next year.
However, I could not wait for my final grade before having to order my
calculus book in March, at a cost of $2,000. If I do not take calculus,
my school will have spent $2,000 for nothing, and I still will not have
a math textbook to use in September!
Thirdly, town budgets are passed (at least in our town) in June. If
requests for new textbooks are approved, the books are purchased over
the summer and arrive by September-all except the Braille versions. I
know someone personally who experienced this. By September, he had a
math book in Braille, but it was the wrong one. The new one had been
quickly ordered but could not be produced in time. The volumes kept
arriving after the material had already been covered. The student's
grades and self-esteem suffered greatly. Sadly, he felt like he was the
problem since no one else in class was complaining.
Fourthly, some Braille textbooks are not available in time because
there are only a limited number of competent Braille typists. Braille
typists must know the various Braille codes. For example, math is typed
in Nemeth code, standard English in literal code, and science text in
scientific code. If a good typist gets an order for three books at
once, he or she might not be able to finish them all on schedule.
Fifthly, books on tape are wonderful, but in general, textbooks in
Braille are preferable. Textbooks are ordered on tape if they are
available when a Braille copy is not. However, turning to the same page
the teacher is on in class is impractical with tapes. Going back and
looking up quotes and other facts is difficult. In addition, tapes can
be defective. This happened to me this past year. By the time I
discovered that two tapes of my history book were blank, it was too
late to order new ones. The homework had to be done. Each night I
scanned pages from a printed copy into my computer before I could start
my homework. My sighted peers probably had much of their homework done
in the time it took me just to scan the text!
Lastly, without a textbook in class, we often have to rely on
friends, an aide, or parents to read materials to us when we are very
capable of reading them ourselves. We don't like to take our friends'
time, because they have their own work to do!
Passing this bill will solve the problems I have discussed and make
Braille textbooks available at the same time as printed textbooks are
available for my sighted peers. Furthermore the fact that books will be
available electronically will allow the option of downloading them into
a Braille word processor or laptop computer. Although Braille hard
copies of textbooks are preferable to tapes, they are bulky and
difficult to carry. The new electronic format will give students the
choice of obtaining their Braille textbook as a hard copy or reading it
in Braille from a Braille word processor. The latter facilitates
portability and allows us to access information more quickly and
easily. Overall, our attention and time will be more appropriately
focused on learning rather than on getting the information. Significant
time will be saved and much stress will be eliminated from our already
busy daily schedules.
Again, thank you Senator Dodd for your leadership with this
critical legislation, and thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this
hearing. Having a textbook in class like everyone else should be a
right, not a privilege. To move us closer to this point, passage of the
Instructional Materials Accessibility Act is essential.
Prepared Statement of Marc Maurer
Mr. Chairman. I am Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind. My address is 1800 Johnson Street. Baltimore
Maryland, 21230. Thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this hearing. It is
a privilege to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions to discuss an issue of such paramount importance
for the blind as the timely availability of books in school. I urge
Congress to pass the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act. S.2246,
this year and I would like to tell you why this should be done.
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is the largest
organization of blind people in the world. We have more than fifty
thousand members composing approximately six hundred chapters in every
state, the District of Columbia; and Puerto Rico. Like myself, all of
our leaders and the vast majority of our members are blind.
As we say in our monthly publication, The Braille Monitor, the NFB
is not an organization speaking for the blind, it is the blind speaking
for themselves. This best describes the purpose of the Federation,
serving as the voice of the nation's blind. When we do this, as in the
present case, the positions we take are reached through discussion,
debate, and votes by our members and leaders across the country.
Today we have come to discuss the Instructional Materials
Accessibility Act, S.2246. This bill will provide books to blind
elementary and high school students in America's schools at the same
time the print editions are provided to sighted students, and in
formats, including Braille, that our blind children require to succeed.
Today, it is often the case that blind students receive their books far
too late in the school year, or receive the portions they need after
the need for them has passed. School districts often find it difficult
to know where to turn in order to get a book converted to Braille.
Converting printed instructional materials into ``specialized formats''
such as Braille is often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly,
taking six or more months and several thousand dollars to complete.
In the mid-nineteenth century, states established centralized
schools for the blind to educate blind and visually impaired students.
To support this, Congress authorized the American Printing House for
the Blind (APH) in Louisville, Kentucky, to produce educational
materials in alternative formats, including Braille. Today AHP
continues to fulfill this function, receiving annual appropriations for
this purpose.
In the 1960's blind children first began to attend schools in their
home communities in significant numbers, and today the vast majority do
so. As a result. Braille, audio, and large print books must be obtained
or created by any local school district having one or more blind
children.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, and other federal laws clearly establish
the policy that individuals with disabilities are entitled to equal
treatment in all areas of society. However, the successful
implementation of these laws cannot occur without clear, specific, and
practical standards and systems in place to anticipate accessibility
needs. Currently, there are no federal laws that create standards to
facilitate the production of textbooks in Braille.
Approximately half of the states have responded to this need by
requiring publishers to provide electronic copies of print editions of
textbooks. However, there is no consistent file format used among the
states, and the electronic copies provided by publishers are frequently
not usable for
Braille reproduction at all. Therefore, inconsistent and often
conflicting state requirements place burdensome obligations on
publishers without efficiently facilitating more timely production of
books in accessible formats. An agreed-upon, uniform electronic file
format would reduce the burden to publishers and significantly reduce
the cost of creating the books. while helping to provide materials to
blind students at the same time they are provided to others.
This brings me to the bill before you today which we see as an
important solution to the problems just described. The purpose of the
Instructional Materials Accessibility Act is to improve the access of
blind elementary and high school students to printed textbooks. This
will be achieved by creating a coordinated, efficient system for the
distribution of electronic files suitable for conversion to many
formats, including Braille.
The principal benefit of this legislation will be a uniform
electronic file format. The process to develop this format is set forth
in section 3 of the bill. A uniform format will allow rapid creation of
textbooks for each student, sighted or blind. For students who read
Braille, their books can be presented through the use of synthetic
speech or stored and read with small computers, which display Braille
dots.
Without this legislation, local school districts will continue to
bear the burden and cost of converting printed books into Braille.
However, modern technology can now support shifting much of this
responsibility to publishers without placing an undue burden on them.
This legislation does not remove the school's responsibility to provide
materials but will institute a shared burden between the schools that
teach the children and the publishers that create the books. This will
be the effect of having a uniform electronic file format and national
distribution center. Provisions describing the Center are set forth in
section 5 of the bill.
This shared obligation between school and publisher has been
carefully crafted with publishers fully engaged in the effort to create
it. Concerning the process, Mr. Chairman, we started to develop the
bill now before you over two years ago. All affected groups, including
the Association of American Publishers, personnel from state education
agencies, producers of Braille and audio textbooks, and representatives
of the blind, including parents and students, were at the table to
discuss and negotiate every sentence. This effort involved pain-staking
deliberations and an uncounted number of drafts, spanning a period of
15 months.
Then, on June 27, 2001, the consensus now expressed in S.2246.
introduced by Senator Dodd, was reached. The real breakthrough here is
that publishers have agreed to prepare an electronic version of each
textbook sold to any school district anywhere in the United States and
to make this text available to all other school districts through a
national distribution center.
The text will be prepared by the publisher at no expense to schools
or government agencies, The Association of American Publishers and its
president, former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, deserve high praise for
reaching this historic agreement on behalf of their members. Through
their efforts each blind child in America will have a better chance to
receive an education of high quality.
Concerning cost, Mr. Chairman, operation of the national
distribution center will be a continuing federal expense. Experts who
know about book production for the blind have estimated the annual cost
to be approximately $1 million. The other cost, authorized in the bill
at $5 million for the first year and such sums thereafter, will be for
technical assistance grants for state and local education agencies.
These funds are needed to help them ramp-up and learn how to use the
new electronic files with maximum efficiency.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman, S.2246 gives the Congress a unique
opportunity to improve educational services for blind children. Senator
Dodd's leadership and personal interest in sponsoring and moving this
bill forward are particularly important to its progress. On behalf of
all blind people in America. I thank you.
Prepared Statement of Barbara N. McCarthy
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, and staff; Thank you for
inviting me to speak to you today. What I am about to tell you, and the
purpose of this legislation, have not been a Senate priority; there are
great economic and international issues before you. What I am going to
tell you about, however, is the priority within the community of blind
and visually impaired people, and the professionals who work with them.
Technology has opened many opportunities to provide all of us with
access to information. This is a matter of allowing technology to
provide access to information. Technology offers the potential to
provide the materials that all students, including those who are blind
and visually impaired, must have in order to receive an equal and
quality education. Ultimately, technology will allow for lower
materials costs, faster delivery, and better student performance.
If I could have called this hearing--I would have invited you to
Richmond, to see what we do at the Library and Resource Center this
time of year. In fact, today, if you were to visit any one of the
materials centers that are located in forty-five (45) states, you would
see similar activity. At the Library and Resource Center in Richmond,
we provide Braille and large print textbooks to all Virginia students
who are blind and visually impaired, about 550 students. We loan
textbooks for the school year. At the end of every academic year, the
books are returned--and made available to be loaned to another student
for the next school year. This time of the year we are busy producing
braille and large print textbooks for the next school year. Most books
have already been ordered, and will likely be ready when school begins.
However, last week I received orders for 5 books to be produced in
Braille: 2 Algebra, a calculus, a geometry, and a biology book. June is
late in the process to receive orders for Braille books. I was able to
find people to produce the math books, but the books will not be ready
when school starts. I have not been able to locate someone who can
produce this biology book. But regardless of when I received the book
order, there is a student who needs the book in Braille, and will
suffer without it when school starts.
Orders for textbooks for the next school year should be received no
later than April 30. Any order received after that is at risk for not
being ready when school begins. When the order is received, we search
our own database, to see if we have either produced the book ourselves,
or purchased the book from another transcribing agency. If we have not
produced the book, and it is an order for large print, we ask for a
copy of the book from the school system, and enlarge it using copy
machines.
If the order is for a Braille textbook, we search the American
Printing House for the Blind's national Louis database, for the title.
If it is not available from another source, we will transcribe the book
using our staff, ask one of our volunteers to transcribe the book, or
pay someone to transcribe the book. A book the size of the biology text
I have with me today will take approximately 9 months to transcribe.
Most transcribers work on several books at one time--and regularly
provide volumes of Braille to stay ahead of the class syllabus. A book
this size--1,183 pages--would translate into 4,732 pages in braille.
The average cost to produce this into Braille book would be: $16,562.
This national practice for producing books in alternative format
that I have described is a process that requires everyone in the chain
to do their part, on time, and accurately. One break in the chain, and
the books will be late for the beginning of school. The process for
providing textbooks in adapted format is dependent upon many factors,
which determine if students receives books on time. Some of those
factors are:
If students are assigned subject areas and classes for the next
school year, prior to May
If the school has identified next year's textbooks
If the school can provide copies of the textbooks for us to use in
production
If the book orders are placed by April 30
If there are transcribers available to produce the book in Braille
If students' schedules don't change when school begins
If students don't move into a different school system unexpectedly
The process that is promoted within the scope of this legislation
is very different from the one we currently use. It requires far less
time, costs less, and will ensure that blind students will receive
their textbooks at the same time as other students. As soon as an order
is received for the book, we would search our database. If we don't
have it, we would check the national database, that this legislation
creates, to see if the file is listed as available. If it is, we will
download the file, print the book in large print or translate the data
using braille software, and provide the book in the student's chosen
format (visual electronic, large print, digital audio, or for use with
an electronic braille display). If the book isn't available, we will
request the electronic file from the publisher, to be deposited in the
center. Once deposited, we will download the file. The cost for my
Resource Center to produce this biology book in Braille, using this
proposed process, would be approximately $785, and it could easily be
produced within a week.
If this legislation is passed, three (3) years from now I will not
struggle to find a means by which this biology textbook is put into
Braille. When the student moves to Fairfax from Newport News in the
middle of the school year, or when the student is doing so well that
she chances classes first semester into an honors class, the books can
be available.
On behalf of the members of the Association of Instructional
Resource Centers for the Visually Impaired--representing every state in
the country, we believe that this legislation offers the single
greatest contribution to blind and visually impaired children's
futures. It will ensure they really do receive the same education as
their sighted peers. Access to information opens doors. This
legislation is a door opener. Children's lives will be changed.
[Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]