Posted on 03/10/2006 10:07:25 AM PST by Mr. Brightside
Chicago Schools Require Driver's Ed for the Blind
CHICAGO - Most high school students eagerly await the day they pass driver's education class. But 16-year-old Mayra Ramirez is indifferent about it.
Ramirez is blind, yet she and dozens of other visually impaired sophomores in Chicago schools are required to pass a written rules-of-the-road exam in order to graduate — a rule they say takes time away from subjects they might actually use.
"In other classes, you don't really feel different because you can do the work other people do," Ramirez said. "But in driver's ed, it does give us the feeling we're different. In a way, it brought me down, because it reminds me of something I can't do."
Hundreds of school districts in Illinois require students to pass driver's ed, although the state only requires that districts offer the courses. A state education official says districts that require it should exempt disabled students.
"It defies logic to require blind students to take this course," Meta Minton, spokeswoman for the state Board of Education, told the Chicago Tribune in a Friday story.
About 30 students at two Chicago high schools with programs for the visually impaired recently formed an advocacy group in part to change the policy.
A Chicago Public Schools official said the district would be open to waiving the requirement.
"I can't explain why up to this point no one has raised the issue and suggested a better way for visually impaired students to opt out of driver's ed," said Chicago schools spokesman Michael Vaughn.
Vaughn said parents of disabled students can, by law, request a change in their child's individual education plan, which could include a driver's ed exemption. But teachers and students said that is a little-known option, and that they have been told driver's ed is required to graduate.
One word: Chicago.
This has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard.
Mighty darned generous of them.
They should demand their rights to take the "on-road" portion of the class. When (If???) they are denied, they should sue!
This must be for if they regain they're sight. Otherwise another waste of taxpayer money. I'll go with wasteful.
Ahh--now I understand why there are braille keypads on drive-up ATMs.....
In other news.....Chicago Scools require quadriplegics to pass the Presidential Fitness Program minimum standards before graduation.
Idiots
Well for one the blind husband of my wife's first cousin who I take to an ATM on occasion. He sits in the back seat behind me and it works very well.
Are you serious? Surgery by braille!
Aw, heck.... you took all the fun out of it!
OMG! That's all I can say...
Since truth is stranger than fiction these days, I have to ask if that's a joke or not!
"Chicago Scools require quadriplegics to pass the Presidential Fitness Program minimum standards before graduation.
Since truth is stranger than fiction these days, I have to ask if that's a joke or not!"
Yes, at least I think it is. :)
It's sort of like lumping all the test scores for retards in with all the other students in the No Child Left Behind Act.
OSHA requires emergency lighting over the fire exits at the skillcraft plant. Skillcraft is a factory that produces items for the gov't like pens made by the blind.
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