THE BRAILLE MONITOR Kenneth Jernigan, Editor Barbara Pierce, Associate Editor Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc, and cassette by THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT National Office 1800 Johnson Street Baltimore, Maryland 21230 * * * * Letters to the President, address changes, subscription requests, orders for NFB literature, articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor should be sent to the National Office. * * * * Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five dollars per year. Members are invited, and non-members are requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to: National Federation of the Blind 1800 Johnson Street Baltimore, Maryland 21230 * * * * THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES ISSN 0006-8829 THE BRAILLE MONITOR PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND CONTENTS APRIL, 1992 A PYRRHIC VICTORY FOR NAC by Barbara Pierce NAC DOWN FOR THE COUNT IN OHIO by Barbara Pierce A POWERFUL TESTIMONY FOR BRAILLE THE WASHINGTON SEMINAR: HARD WORK, EXCITEMENT, AND FUN IN FEBRUARY TRIBUTE TO A FEDERATIONIST by Jon Deden ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, THE ADA, AND THE NFB by Ed Eames INTEGRITY, INDEPENDENCE, AND THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND by Barbara Pierce TOURS WITH ALLURE IN CHARLOTTE by Wayne E. Shevlin CONVENTION ATTRACTIONS RECIPES MONITOR MINIATURES Copyright National Federation of the Blind, Inc., 1992 [2 PHOTOS/CAPTION: If you haven't yet made your room reservation for the 1992 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Charlotte, North Carolina, June 28 through July 4, you don't have much time left. Queen Charlotte (above), consort of King George III of Great Britain, stands ready to greet you at the Charlotte airport. The Carolina Mall (below) provides only one of many tempting ways available to spend free hours during the convention; and, of course, the convention activities, the vast array of exhibits, the friendships to be made or re-established, and most of all the exciting and important convention agenda items will make the 1992 NFB convention unforgettable. But reservations must be made soon! We have four convention hotels, but space is at a premium. Contact the National Center for the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, MD 21230; (410) 659-9314. A deposit of $40 is necessary to hold each room being reserved. Send checks (made payable to the National Federation of the Blind); money orders; or Visa, Discover, or MasterCard credit card numbers to the National Center for the Blind to hold your room. Remember to indicate the dates of your arrival and departure, the type of room you want, and the names of the people who will share it. Do it today!] A PYRRHIC VICTORY FOR NAC by Barbara Pierce Some victories, like that of King Pyrrhus over Rome in the third century B.C., are so costly that ultimate defeat is as certain an outcome as an outright loss would have been. On February 4, 1992, the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) may well have sustained such a victory. On that date the National Advisory Committee on Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility heard public testimony concerning whether to keep NAC on the U.S. Department of Education's list of approved accrediting agencies. NAC had appeared on that list since 1971 and was due to undergo its regular five-year review last May--a month during which NAC was grappling with the question of whether or not to declare bankruptcy. In the circumstances the Advisory Committee voted to postpone its consideration until the fall when the issue of NAC's continued existence would be a little clearer. By November the agency was still staggering from month to month, but by then the Committee's schedule had become complicated, so the hearing, which should have taken place at that time, was rescheduled for early February of this year. The hearing took place late on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 4, and when the dust settled at about 6:30 p.m., the Committee had voted (eight to two) to approve its staff's recommendation to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, who will make the actual decision. As the Braille Monitor goes to press in late March, the outcome of the Secretary's decision is still anybody's guess. But the Advisory Committee has recommended that NAC be given, not the standard five-year extension that it had hoped for, but two more years with rigorous auditing reports required periodically in the interim. Not a single member of the Committee spoke in support of NAC's record or program, only (as the seconder of the final motion put it) of giving NAC one more chance to fail in the hope that it just might succeed. The hundreds of blind people who filled the hearing room at the DuPont Plaza Hotel that afternoon had hoped to be present when the Advisory Committee took a bold step in favor of common sense and fiscal responsibility by removing NAC from the list--a hope in which they were disappointed. What they did see was NAC stripped bare--its financial and programmatic shortcomings open to the light of day and its supporters clutching frantically at the fig leaves of professionalism and promises of future fiscal reform. This is the way it happened. The Code of Federal Regulations (34 CFR part 602) establishes a set of criteria which every agency seeking inclusion on the U.S. Department of Education's list of approved accrediting bodies must meet. The primary aim of these criteria is to establish that accrediting agencies on the Secretary's list be reliable authorities on the quality of education or training offered by post-secondary educational institutions or programs within the agencies' scope of activity. As the regulations are written, failure to meet even one criterion provides due cause for removing an accrediting body from the list. In the view of those who opposed NAC's continued inclusion, there was ample evidence that NAC fails to meet at least four of the criteria and, therefore, should be removed. James Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs for the National Federation of the Blind, stated the objections in his written testimony as follows: The criteria include nine major points. NAC fails to meet the standards for recognition in at least four respects: * Accreditation is not required for programs or students to receive federal assistance in the blindness field; * NAC is not generally accepted in the blindness field; * NAC does not have the resources to carry out its activities; and * NAC's evaluation and reaccreditation practices do not follow its own stated policies for evaluations to be made at reasonable intervals. This is what Mr. Gashel said, and all of the third-party testimony focused on presenting evidence from various distinguished and knowledgeable individuals to support his statements. All day February 4 and into the morning of February 5, the National Advisory Committee on Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility met in a large room at the DuPont Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., to hear testimony about various accrediting bodies that were up for review. Interested blind people began quietly filtering into the hearing room at about 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 4, and by the time the Committee was ready to turn its attention to the National Accreditation Council at a little after 3:30, the room was filled. NAC was given an opportunity to present whatever information it wished in support of its contention that it is a viable accrediting body in the field of work with the blind with the resources to do its work and the capacity to accredit member agencies at the appropriate times. Since one of the Department's criteria specifies that the agencies on its list must provide accreditation for institutions which would not (or whose students would not) be eligible for federal funds without such accreditation, NAC was also compelled to demonstrate that some of its members or their students would be deprived of federal funds without NAC's services. Three representatives spoke in support of NAC. The first was Dr. Richard Welsh, Vice President of the NAC Board and Executive Director of the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind. He was followed by Kathleen Megivern, the Executive Director of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Oral Miller, the National Representative of the American Council of the Blind. Ruth Westman, NAC's Program Administrator, was also present to answer questions as needed. Their task was not an enviable one. To those who know something about the field of work with the blind, their explanations and excuses appeared thin, to say the least. First the Affiliated Leadership League of and for the Blind (ALL) was trotted out from its obscure and lethargic corner in an attempt to provide, yet once again, some substance to the fiction that NAC is generally respected in the field. ALL was created in the first place because NAC needed an official-sounding body to wave the flag of respectability over NAC's head--ALL has never done anything else of note--but Dr. Welsh and company spent several minutes assuring the Committee that ALL continues to applaud NAC. The financial straits in which NAC increasingly finds itself and about which the Advisory Committee's own staff expressed grave concern in its report were dismissed as temporary and due completely to the disappearance of the American Foundation for the Blind and National Industries for the Blind grants last year. According to Dr. Welsh, NAC is seeking new grants and contributions from its own circle of individual supporters; and, considering the alleged excellence of NAC accreditation (in his own words, "the quality of the product, which is our most important asset"), other benefactors will very soon be jumping on the bandwagon. Dr. Welsh assured the Committee that the shrinkage in NAC's staff and board will make no difference in the quality of the agency's program. Before the financial crisis last year, the executive director never played any part in the accreditation process, so his absence will apparently hardly be noticed. Besides, NAC's roster of professionals (who now volunteer their time to do the accreditations) are now getting used to doing on- site visits and evaluations without any NAC staff present. Moreover, members of the reduced Board of Directors are busy doing fundraising, developing alternative dues structures, negotiating with the landlord, and developing grant proposals and a membership campaign--all duties which at one time belonged to the executive director. In short, with a total disregard for the fact that volunteers must have staff supervision and support, Dr. Welsh argued that the staff reductions necessitated by near bankruptcy have left NAC as well positioned as other accrediting bodies. Citing no figures to bolster the contention, he said that NAC's staff-to-member ratio is as good as, or better than, those of many other accrediting bodies. The hard truth that an accrediting body must maintain a certain number of staff members to establish and maintain adequate supervision of its accrediting program seems to have been conveniently ignored. Because of economy of scale, expanding an existing accreditation program does not require that the staff grow at the same rate as does the number of organizations seeking evaluation. But the real significance of NAC's staff reductions and its shift to volunteers is that it was carried out as a result of the threat of bankruptcy. Unless NAC was being more than commonly inefficient in the good old days, one presumes that the members of the larger staff all found useful things to do. Eliminating their jobs means that difficult changes have been forced upon NAC, and the most likely victim of the alterations is the accreditation program. At one point in his testimony Dr. Welsh addressed himself to the concern raised by many people that NAC allows agencies reaching the date of their reaccreditation to postpone the process for considerable lengths of time. With no explanation that in 1991 NAC reassigned later review dates to twenty agencies, Dr. Welsh offered explanations for three postponements, leaving those listeners who did not know better to assume that the three he mentioned constituted the only instances of delayed evaluation. Dr. Welsh's most remarkable effort at creative misdirection occurred when he admitted that none of the agencies currently accredited by NAC and none of their students were in danger of losing federal funds if NAC were to be removed from the Department of Education list. Lest anyone conclude correctly from this admission that NAC, therefore, does not meet one of the Department of Education criteria, he went on to suggest that the time might come when member agencies had students applying for Pell grants or GSL loans. If that were to happen, NAC's inclusion on the Department's list would enable such federal funds to be used for grants at member agencies. The only trouble with that argument is that the Department of Education is supposed to concern itself with things as they are and not as they may be at some future time. Dr. Welsh was the primary spokesperson for the NAC position, and Ms. Megivern and Mr. Miller were appointed to direct their comments respectively to the issues of professional and consumer recognition of NAC. Here is the official text of Dr. Welsh's testimony as transcribed for the Department of Education. Dashes appear to be inserted at points where the transcriptionist was uncertain of the text: DR. WELSH: I am Dr. Richard Welsh, and I appear before you today as the Vice President of the National Accreditation Council. I have served as the Vice President since last May and have served on the board of directors four years. I recently completed a term of six years on the Commission on Accreditation. For twelve years I was the superintendent of the Maryland School for the Blind in Baltimore, which was the first residential school for blind children to be accredited by NAC, and recently I am serving as the President of the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind, which has recently made its first application for accreditation. I'm joined by Mrs. Ruth Westman, who is the Executive Director of the Council. She's been a member of the staff since 1983 and is very well respected as an accreditation professional by the folks who have dealt with her in her role at NAC. We're also joined by Kathleen Megivern, the Executive Director of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation for Blind and Visually Impaired, which is the major professional association in our field, and by Oral Miller, the National Representative of the American Council of the Blind, which is the consumer organization. We regret that our president, Dr. N. Ed Miller of Reno, Nevada, retired as the president of the University of Nevada at Reno, was not able to be here with us today. Some of you may know Dr. Miller from his many years of involvement with accreditation as a college university president, as chair of the Commission of the Northwest Association of Colleges and Schools, and during the 1970s as a member and chairman of this Advisory Commission on Accreditation. We are very pleased to have him as the president of NAC and a strong supporter of our effort. I also want to acknowledge that with us today but not here at the table is Mr. John Profitt, who has been a member of the board of NAC and recent past chair of our Commission on Accreditation, also well known to many of you for his involvement in the accreditation field, having served as the director of the staff for this committee previously. You've reviewed the basic information about the Council. We have heard the analysis and the recommendation provided by the staff. We believe that the analysis is thorough and the recommendation is fair. I would like to comment on the problem area identified by the staff and three areas in need of strengthening, and then two other areas in the detailed analysis the staff suggested we be prepared to address at this meeting. Then I will ask Ms. Megivern and Mr. Miller to make their remarks. Following that, then Ms. Westman and I will be available to answer any questions you may have. Our relation to the problem area related to criterion 602.14A: that the agency demonstrates that its policies, evaluation methods, and decisions are accepted throughout the United States by educators and educational institutions. We are pleased that the only national coalition of organizations of blind people and organizations which provide services to blind people, the Affiliated Leadership League of and for the Blind of America, has strongly endorsed the Council and urge you to continue our recognition as an accrediting agency. As members of that coalition and individually, the American Foundation for the Blind, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, the American Council of the Blind, the Council of Schools for the Blind, and the National Industries for the Blind--five major organizations, all national in scope and each with a different constituency, a different primary focus, and independent leadership--all have independently endorsed and support NAC. We have still other sponsoring members and a large number of organizations as supporting members, which are available in the materials that you had to review. We have accredited agencies in thirty-five states, Puerto Rico, and Canada. We are the only recognized accreditation body which specializes in programs, schools, and agencies for people who are blind or visually impaired. We have had broad and active participation in the development and the updating of our standards from people from all over the country. No other organization has developed and carried out such a broad-based process of establishing a test and quality standards in this field. There is no question that we are accepted and endorsed throughout the United States, and while there is strong opposition noted by the staff from one national organization, we think we clearly meet this standard as we have met it in past reviews, even though the same opposition has been stated at previous reviews. We recognize the staff's concern with the volume of correspondence that you've received in opposition to NAC. However, we have focused our response on providing the factual answers to the staff's concerns, and we have not really focused on orchestrating a strong letter response or a long list of witnesses today. In relation to the areas listed in need of strengthening, in reference to criterion 602.15A, the staff have properly indicated that the concern exists currently in the area of the Council's financial resources. This has resulted primarily from our loss of major operating grants from our two largest contributing organizations. From its very beginning, the Council has enjoyed outstanding support from the American Foundation for the Blind and, to an increasing degree in more recent years, from the National Industries for the Blind. The availability of this support permitted NAC to develop a high-quality accreditation process, which very early in its history met the rigorous standards for recognition which your Committee and the Department administers. Adjusting to the loss of this type of support after such a long time is indeed a really significant challenge for us. Our plan for doing so has several components. First, we have reduced our expenses through a reduction in our occupancy costs with more improvements to come once our current lease expires in January. Second, we have reduced the size of our professional staff to the minimum that's required to continue to administer the size of the accreditation program which we currently manage. The ratio of staff size to the number of accredited members is similar to that of many other specialized accrediting agencies and still better than some others. We have reduced the size of the Board of Directors and the Commission on Accreditation while still retaining the balance between number of consumers, number of professionals, and the number of members from the general community on each body. Before considering a dues increase, we are reviewing the accreditation process to determine if, without losing the quality of the product, which is our most important asset, it can be streamlined further to reduce the cost of self-study and on-site review to the agency, thus making a possible dues increase more acceptable. We have developed and implemented a fund-raising campaign, which Mr. Rogers mentioned, beginning with the staff and the Board and the Commission members and extending out from there to past Board members, past Commission members, and previous donors. We want to establish an ongoing base of support among those who know best the quality of the contribution which NAC makes to our field. From there we will extend our campaign to other foundations and corporations and organizations, which we hope will be motivated by an indication of support we receive from those closest to the organization and closest to the need. We've made an excellent beginning by developing a balanced budget for this year, which is realistic and currently on target. We have made recent changes in our support staff which represent the more efficient use of our resources and which will provide more support to the professional staff. Over the past few years the accreditation process itself has been managed by one full-time professional, Mrs. Westman. The previous executive director was not involved in the on-site reviews or in the processing of progress reports or in scheduling of the site visits. The volunteer Board has picked up on some of the duties previously handled by the executive director, including the management of the fund-raising campaigns, the developing of proposals to the board regarding alternative dues structures, negotiating with the landlord, and developing grant proposals-- also in developing a campaign for seeking additional members. We don't expect that this new staffing pattern will prevent us from administering a strong accreditation program. We will require more use of staffless on-site reviews, which is something that we have been doing on a partial basis over the past few years, and we feel we have a cadre of experienced reviewers available to serve as the chairpersons for on-site review teams when staff are not present. As our membership increases, income from dues will increase, and the staff size can be adjusted as necessary. The important point is the financial solvency of NAC will, for the first time, be directly related to NAC's ability to deliver a quality product that agencies will select and pay for. Since this is NAC's strength, we fully expect that it will succeed. In relation to criterion 602.16C, the staff has recommended that NAC include a policy in its published policies and procedures regarding a time frame for the opportunity for comment by interested parties on proposed changes to our criteria for accreditation. Our practice has always been to allow three to six months for comment. We have been commended for this practice in the past. We understand that it would strengthen our position to have this practice expressed in a formal written policy, which we will do for consideration by our Board at its next meeting this summer. In relation to criterion 602.16G, the staff has recommended that NAC publish a more explicit policy related to conflict of interest. Such a policy has been developed and approved by the Board of Directors as an amendment to our bylaws and will be published in the revised bylaws in the very near future. Turning now from the recommendations page of the staff's report to the staff's more detailed analysis, I would like to comment briefly on two other areas. First, on page eight, in reference to criterion 602.12B, regarding the scope of activity, the staff, while concluding that NAC meets the requirements of this section, alludes to an area of confusion in our petition which has been a point of concern in many of the letters that you have received from opponents to the National Accreditation Council. Staff felt that in responding in a general way to this criterion and in discussing the various types of Federal funding that are used by schools and agencies that NAC accredits that our petition appears to imply that accreditation of institutions or programs is required by an agency approved by the Secretary in order for students to participate in programs of financial assistance provided through the Rehabilitation Act. We apologize for the confusion which that response has created. NAC clearly understands, and we know that the Committee does too, that even though a number of State rehabilitation agencies require, recommend, or encourage accreditation by NAC for agencies delivering Federally-funded rehabilitation services, that that is not a Federal requirement. We did mention these State requirements in response to criterion 602.14B, which refers to national recognition, but not in reference to criterion 602.12B, the scope of activity. However, in relation to scope of activity, the staff pointed out in the background review that NAC was originally included on the Secretary's list because of our accreditation of residential schools for the blind. However, in 1984 we requested and received an expansion of our scope of recognition at the request of one of our agencies, which was seeking to use funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which provides for Pell Grants and GSL loans and other sources of Federal support directly for students. This agency was looking to fund one of their--a secretarial training course for blind students from those sources. So we applied for extension of our scope to include that. As far as we know, we are the only accrediting agency that is in a position to provide accreditation to agencies for the blind which wish to pursue that funding option. While none of the accredited agencies we currently serve are taking advantage of that funding stream, as Federal grant funding becomes less available and loan funding more prevalent in post-secondary education, we expect to see other agencies consider this option. If NAC is not able to provide the approved accreditation, that option will be closed to our agencies. Finally, on page 17 of the staff's analysis in relation to the criterion 602.16B, which requires that the agency reevaluate institutions and programs at reasonable intervals, the staff has asked that we address the concerns expressed by third-party testimony that three specific agencies had their accreditation extended without being evaluated. The staff's understanding of this issue is generally correct. One of the three agencies received a postponement of this evaluation from 1991 to 1992 due to major construction and renovation going on in its facility at that time, an extension which is consistent with our published guidelines for extension. The other two agencies mentioned were scheduled for on-site reviews last spring at the time when the Board had proposed that the council be dissolved. Out of fairness to the agencies and in view of the expense of hosting the on-site review, the chairman of the Council's Commission on Accreditation granted an extension of accreditation to the two agencies in question until such time as the status of the Council was determined. One of the two agencies is currently scheduled for accreditation review this spring, and discussions are underway with the other one about a suitable review date. ____________________ There you have Dr. Welsh's statement. Those by the representatives from the Association for Education and Rehabilitation (AER) and the ACB were about what could have been expected. Then came the comments of various third-party witnesses who, from their different perspectives, had reservations about NAC's continued inclusion on the Secretary's list. The first of these was Richard Edlund, who had to leave almost immediately to catch a plane. What follows is the text of the written statement he gave to the Committee: [PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Richard Edlund, Representative, 33rd District, Wyandotte County, Kansas.] Dear Committee Members: My name is Richard J. (Dick) Edlund, and I am appearing in opposition to the petition of renewal which has been submitted by the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC). Currently I represent the Thirty-third District, Kansas City, Kansas, in the Kansas House of Representatives; and I am a retired small businessman, who owned and operated a hardware store for over forty years. Accidentally blinded about fifty years ago, I have had the opportunity to serve and to be served by a variety of blind organizations at the local, state, and national levels. My involvement with the organized blind movement has allowed me to visit and advocate for the blind all across the United States. I have been especially appalled at NAC's involvement in litigation activities against blind people who have sought to form labor unions in sheltered workshops. NAC has assisted the workshops in resisting orders of the National Labor Relations Board, which may be in direct violation of the law. In addition, NAC has refused to take action against NAC-accredited workshops which have been found to be in violation of regulations pertaining to sub-minimum wages. Therefore, NAC is viewed by many blind workshop employees, and by some law-abiding workshops, as an advocate of oppressive wages and is certainly not recognized as a reputable accreditation agency. Nationally NAC accreditation is accepted by a small percentage of agencies serving the blind; and several of these agencies, such as the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, have experienced serious scandals while enjoying NAC accreditation. In my own State of Kansas there are approximately twenty-four blind services listed in the twenty-third edition of the Directory of Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped, which is published by the American Foundation for the Blind. Only one of these service providers (a sheltered workshop) is currently accredited by NAC. The major service providers in my state, including the state school for the visually handicapped and the publicly funded state vocational rehabilitation agency, are not NAC-accredited. It also appears that NAC's accreditation of residential schools for the blind providing elementary and secondary educational services no longer falls within the scope of part 602, since the Secretary of Education no longer recognizes accrediting agencies outside the field of post-secondary education. However, I would like to point out that the Kansas School for the Visually Handicapped has not chosen to pursue NAC accreditation. In an April 5, 1991, letter to Charles L. Griffith, the school's position was summarized as follows: NAC is not considered a reliable accrediting authority, who constantly fails to reach consensus in the field of blindness, and experiences a lack of financial support from accredited agencies. Also, NAC accreditation is not sought since there are other, better recognized accrediting procedures. And finally, NAC's accrediting methods have failed to keep up with recognized advances in accreditation through the "outcomes" models that are currently used in Kansas and surrounding states. In conclusion I can assure you, from personal experience, that NAC has failed to measure up to the criteria established by the Secretary of Education and, in my opinion, has actually held back the progress of blind men and women in our country. NAC has not earned the right to continue as a recipient of your recognition. Please do not continue this travesty. Your concern is appreciated, and I thank you for taking the time to review my comments. Sincerely, Richard J. Edlund Thirty-third District Representative Kansas City, Kansas Kansas House of Representatives ____________________ When Mr. Edlund had departed, Joyce Scanlan, the director of a private adult rehabilitation facility, came to the microphone. Here is her statement: [PHOTO: Joyce Scanlan seated at table. CAPTION: Joyce Scanlan, Executive Director, BLIND, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota.] My name is Joyce Scanlan. As the executive director of Blindness, Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND, Inc.) I wish to present testimony in opposition to the recognition of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) as an accrediting body for educational programs for the blind. I wish to thank the advisory committee for the opportunity to provide the following information. Although I have been blind all of my life and have been both a student in a residential school for the blind and a rehabilitation client of public and private agencies for the blind, it has only been during the past twenty years that I have come to recognize that not all entities dealing with blindness promote the same positive philosophy and administer the same quality program for the blind as we would like to think. Yet it is the philosophy of blindness underlying the entire operation of an organization serving the blind which makes the difference between run-of-the-mill and quality services. For more than twenty years I have followed the activities of NAC, and because of my familiarity with the work of several agencies accredited by NAC, I am convinced that this advisory committee must reject NAC'S application to be placed on the list of recognized accrediting bodies for educational programs for the blind. Prior to becoming the executive director of BLIND, Inc., I held several positions. I taught English, foreign languages, and social studies at the secondary school level in a residential school for the blind and in three different public high schools. I worked for many years as an advocate, assisting blind people in their efforts to reach productive and meaningful lives through use of rehabilitation and educational services provided by various agencies in our state. I have a master's degree in English and have completed post-graduate work toward a doctorate in the area of social welfare. Blind people in Minnesota struggled to find better services to help them gain skills in the use of alternative techniques and more positive attitudes concerning blindness. Their efforts met with rebuff at every turn, since the only program in the state at the time providing such services was one accredited by NAC. That agency was totally unresponsive and turned a deaf ear to their pleas for a program which promoted a positive image of blindness. After several years of trying in vain to reform an existing agency, the blind of the state decided to establish a new program. That is how BLIND, Inc. came into being. BLIND, Inc. has operated now for four years and serves a national audience. Besides Minnesota, we have served blind people from six other states. Blind people from many other states have also found it necessary to move to Minnesota to take advantage of training in our program. We have attracted international recognition as well, having hosted delegations from seven foreign countries. The funding of BLIND, Inc. is not contingent upon accreditation from NAC. We are, however, required to meet certain state standards. We have an operating agreement with the state rehabilitation agency for the blind and are subject to ongoing monitoring and regular program and financial audits. We must have consumer involvement and be evaluated for outcomes of services by the state agency. All of this is done without any call for NAC. BLIND, Inc., is accredited by the National Center for the Blind and has met all requirements for program standards and staff qualifications established by the state. Because there is no requirement of accreditation for agencies to receive funding, NAC does not affect the distribution of federal funds. Furthermore, it has long been apparent that very few programs have seen fit to seek NAC accreditation. And many of those who have received NAC accreditation have decided subsequently to drop that accreditation. NAC has never been widely accepted in the field of blindness, and the low-level acceptance it has had has steadily decreased over recent years. To evaluate the results and effectiveness of training by agencies from which the state rehab agency for the blind purchases services, Minnesota State Services for the Blind conducted a facilities effectiveness survey in 1990. Clients of the three programs used by the state agency were surveyed to determine what skills learned in the training program they were using, how they felt about themselves and their ability to participate in society, and what they were doing with their lives subsequent to the training. The three agencies surveyed were BLIND, Inc.; the Minneapolis Society for the Blind (MSB); and the Duluth Lighthouse for the Blind (DLB). Both MSB and DLB were, at the time, accredited by NAC. MSB has since withdrawn from NAC. The results of the training provided by the three programs are strikingly different. While rehab counselors and some other professionals claimed that the three programs were primarily the same, all providing a type of comprehensive instruction with some varying levels of component services, the three programs yielded very different outcomes. The attached survey summary report shows graphically how different the three programs really are. For example, the skills used chart on Page 5 shows that 65% of the students who finished BLIND, Inc., read Braille every week, while only 11% of those who finished training at DLB and 38% of those who finished training at MSB, the two NAC-accredited agencies, used Braille every week. Also, of those who finished training at BLIND, Inc., 57% traveled independently with a white cane every day, while only 23% from MSB and 7% from DLB traveled independently with a white cane every day. On Page 6 the chart on activity after training shows that the most common activity for people who had completed training at BLIND, Inc. was continuing to prepare for employment, while the most common activity for those who completed training from the NAC-accredited agencies was doing nothing. On Page 10 the attitudes and confidence after training chart reveals that 87% of the students from BLIND, Inc. believed they could do as well in life as sighted people; of the graduates of the NAC-accredited programs, on the other hand, only 22% believed they could compete with sighted people. Another glaring difference demonstrated by the results of the effectiveness survey done by the state rehabilitation agency for the blind was how much the people who completed the training were likely to use the skills learned in the program. The students from the NAC-accredited agencies were less than half as likely to use skills learned after leaving the program as those who graduated from the BLIND, Inc., program. This survey report gives definite comparisons between agencies accredited by NAC and another not accredited by NAC. The outcomes clearly demonstrate that NAC accreditation provides no guarantee as to desired outcomes. Evidence points to the fact that NAC accreditation is no guarantee of quality services. I urge the advisory committee to deny the application of NAC for recognition by the Department of Education as an accrediting body. The field of blindness has already strenuously rejected NAC. Blind Americans have never supported NAC as a viable accrediting body. And during the past few years even previous financial and professional supporters of NAC have withdrawn their support. NAC's accreditation is meaningless. The field of blindness does need standards and ongoing evaluation, but NAC has shown no capacity to provide meaningful standards and assure quality services. ____________________ After Mrs. Scanlan completed her testimony, Dr. Homer Page, President of the Colorado Center for the Blind and a Boulder County Commissioner, delivered a statement. Here it is: [PHOTO: Homer Page seated at table microphone. CAPTION: Homer Page, Chairman, Board of Directors, Colorado Center for the Blind; Chairman, Advisory Board, Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind; and Member, Board of Commissioners, Boulder County, Colorado.] My name is Homer Page. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I am a member of the Boulder County Board of Commissioners. For fourteen years prior to my election, I directed the Office of Services to Disabled students at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I teach in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Colorado. I also chair the Advisory Board of the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, and I am the Chair of the Board for the Colorado Center for the Blind. I am the founder of the Boulder County Center for People with Disabilities, and for eight years I chaired the Board. During May, 1991, I lectured and gave workshops on the topic of blindness and providing rehabilitation services to blind persons in Sweden. These lectures and workshops were conducted with Swedish educators and rehabilitation counselors, the Swedish Institute for Research in Special Education, and the Swedish National Program for the Employment of Blind Persons. I come before you today to ask that you not recommend renewal of the Department of Education's recognition of the National Accreditation Council as an accrediting agency in the field of work with the blind. There are three reasons for making this request. They are as follows: 1. NAC is very controversial in the field of work with the blind. In 1988 the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind was a troubled institution, having come under serious attack by the state legislature, and was in danger of being closed down. The superintendent and the principal of the school supported the idea of CSDB's pursuing NAC accreditation. They sought an ally in their struggle for survival. Fortunately, the Commissioner of Education, to whom the Superintendent reports, terminated this pursuit when he learned what difficulties NAC-accredited schools for the blind have experienced. Since 1988 CSDB has undergone a state legislative audit review, has made many personnel changes, has significantly redefined its mission, and is now on the way to becoming a healthy institution. This transformation took place without NAC accreditation. I think most persons associated with the school recognize that NAC accreditation would have impeded genuine reform. Why is this true? The answer is clear. NAC would have been brought into this situation to do battle on behalf of entrenched and unproductive policies and personnel. NAC accreditation has nothing to do with standards or with the improvement of services; it is political through and through. For most of the life of NAC, its member agencies were banded together to fend off demands for quality services made by those who would consume those services. NAC accreditation at CSDB would have meant the creation of a fortress mentality, and most likely it would have led to the demise of the institution. 2. Those who support NAC often say its critics are simply opposed to accreditation. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my own case, I have supported accreditation and certification for both the Center for People with Disabilities and the Colorado Center for the Blind. I led the CPWD agency through the CARF accrediting process, which was successful. While CPWD was in compliance with most of the CARF standards, we were able to improve our personnel and fiscal management, and we especially gained from the process in the area of program evaluation. The Colorado Center for the Blind participates in an annual certification process conducted by the Colorado State Department of Social Services. CCB participates in this process voluntarily, and there is no requirement that the agency be certified, but we have found the process to be helpful. The issue is not "Do we oppose accreditation?" It is rather, "Is there an objective external agency in the field of work with the blind that can conduct a genuine accreditation program?" We do not believe that such an agency exists at this time. Certainly NAC does not qualify. 3. Even if NAC were dedicated to an objective accreditation process, it could not conduct a viable program. It simply lacks the resources to be credible. During this fiscal year NAC will most likely have to operate with a budget under $200,000. Its resources are shrinking. Whatever purpose it may have once had for existing has long since passed. It is time for the field of work with the blind to be freed from the political intrigues, climate of intimidation, and bitter confrontations that have marked it for the past two decades. You can help us to move forward with the creation of a genuine accreditation process by ending DOE's recognition of NAC. In conclusion I wish to state once again that I come before you to request that you recommend against the renewal of recognition of NAC. The issue before you is not, "Can NAC survive for another two years?" It is, "Can you make a positive contribution to promoting the development of a credible accreditation process for agencies serving the blind?" The situation in which we find ourselves now is much like a Monopoly game which has progressed far beyond the point when the outcome is in doubt. Yet the game drags on, it is boring and tedious to its players, and it is wasteful because it prevents them from engaging in other meaningful activity. You can help the blind of this nation by contributing to the closing of the NAC operation. This would not signal an end to the accreditation effort in the field of work with the blind. It would rather set us free to try again. Uniform standards, accountability, and a consistent voice for quality services are much-needed aspects of a widely supported accreditation program. Won't you help us bring such a process into being? ____________________ Dr. Page's testimony was followed by that of Joanne Wilson, Executive Director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind, an adult rehabilitation center. This is what she had to say: [PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Joanne Wilson, Director, Louisiana Center for the Blind, Ruston, Louisiana.] My name is Joanne Wilson. I am the director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind, located in Ruston, Louisiana. The Louisiana Center for the Blind is a private rehabilitation agency which trains blind persons from throughout Louisiana and the country in the skills of blindness and instills positive attitudes and self- confidence through its innovative and unique programs. It has become a model for other training centers as well as a respected site for professional training. Never in its history has it been accredited by the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped. Furthermore, it will never seek accreditation from NAC. Other programs in the state which are not NAC-accredited nor seeking accreditation include the Training and Resource Center for the Blind at the University of New Orleans, which is also recognized as a model program, and the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired. Both the Louisiana Center for the Blind and the Training and Resource Center for the Blind have been recognized by the Governor and the state of Louisiana as the finest programs for rehabilitation in the state. Although not opposed to the concept of accreditation and the accountability which should accompany such a process, the Louisiana Center for the Blind believes strongly that such accreditation should be meaningful. In the Center's experience NAC accreditation essentially carries no meaning. Although two agencies in Louisiana--workshop facilities--are accredited by NAC, no significance is attributed to this accreditation in the selection of these providers for client services by Louisiana Rehabilitation Services. In fact, it is widely recognized throughout the state and publicly admitted by these agencies that they are on shaky ground both financially and programmatically. There has never been any requirement or policy adopted by the state of Louisiana to have providers of services for the blind seek NAC accreditation, although other accrediting bodies have been recognized over the years. Specifically, in the state of Louisiana professionals have agreed (even those in NAC-accredited workshops) that NAC accreditation is a stamp of approval at a lofty cost, given without regard for the quality of services or NAC's own standards. At a statewide meeting of blind persons and professionals in April of 1991, a member of the NAC accrediting team, who was also the director of a NAC agency in Louisiana, publicly stated that he voted to dissolve NAC when balloting was undertaken to resolve the shaky future of NAC. As I see it, NAC is simply fighting a losing battle in its attempt to restore its livelihood and credibility among professionals and agencies serving the blind. Because of its history of accrediting many agencies which are viewed as substandard and the indiscriminate way in which agencies are granted accreditation, blind persons and professionals have written it off as a vehicle for insuring quality standards and services. In summary, it is apparent to me and to my colleagues in the field of rehabilitation of the blind in Louisiana that NAC does not meet the criteria to be recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Thank you for this opportunity to present my comments on this matter. ____________________ Dr. Abraham Nemeth, creator of the Nemeth mathematics Braille Code and Chairman of the Michigan Commission for the Blind, was the next individual to offer comments to the Committee. This is what he said: [PHOTO: Abraham Nemeth standing at podium microphone. CAPTION: Abraham Nemeth, Chairman, Michigan Commission for the Blind, and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Computer Science, Southfield, Michigan.] My name is Dr. Abraham Nemeth. I am congenitally blind and was educated using the techniques and skills of blindness. For thirty years before my retirement in 1985 I taught mathematics and computer science at the University of Detroit. I am the author of the "Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science," a system now standard in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and other English-speaking countries throughout the world. In July of 1991 Governor Engler of Michigan appointed me to be the Chairman of the Michigan Commission for the Blind. I am here to speak in opposition to the inclusion of NAC on the Department of Education's list of recognized accrediting agencies. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) has as one of its criteria that an accrediting agency should enjoy wide recognition in the field in which it operates. Out of a total of 500 agencies serving the blind which NAC itself has identified as eligible for accreditation, barely 100 are now accredited by NAC after twenty- five years since its inception. This certainly does not indicate wide acceptance of NAC in its field. Many agencies have declined NAC accreditation, and many others, having once been accredited, have decided to terminate their NAC affiliation. In Michigan, from which I come, two of the best known agencies have declined NAC accreditation. One is Leader Dogs for the Blind of Rochester, Michigan. This organization enjoys a national as well as a local reputation for excellence. The other is the Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, our capital. Important agencies in other states have chosen not to be NAC-accredited. Some of these are Kansas State Services for the Blind, Governor Morehead School for the Blind in North Carolina, and Rhode Island State Services for the Blind. The National Braille Association, one of the largest groups of volunteers in the nation, who produce Braille, large print, and recorded materials for the blind, and of which I am a charter member, has also terminated its NAC affiliation, having been accredited for many years. Directors of agencies for the blind are hard put to name any tangible benefits resulting from NAC accreditation. Mr. Griffith's staff has on file many letters which indicate that NAC accreditation is neither required nor suggested as a condition for federal funding. Several years before my tenure on the Michigan Commission for the Blind, that Commission voted not to purchase goods or services from NAC-accredited agencies if comparable quality goods and services were available elsewhere. Subsequently the Attorney General ruled this Commission action to be illegal. As a result the Commission's actions were changed, but not its opinion. Another criterion cited in the CFR is that an accrediting agency must have sufficient resources to carry out its mission. So bankrupt is NAC that its Board of Directors in April, 1991, voted to recommend dissolving NAC. This decision was rejected by a subsequent vote of the NAC membership, but only by a narrow margin. NAC currently operates with a skeleton staff. It has no current executive director. In past years more than half of its funding came from the American Foundation for the Blind and National Industries for the Blind. Both of these agencies have now withdrawn their funding because they perceive no likelihood that NAC can generate income from other sources. A large number of agencies due for reaccreditation in 1991 and earlier have had their accreditation renewed by NAC without reevaluation for lack of resources. NAC accreditation is unrelated to quality of service. Some of the most regressive agencies, as perceived in the blindness community, are NAC-accredited, while many of the best agencies are not. For these and other reasons for which time does not permit elaboration, I strongly urge that NAC not be included on the Department of Education's list of accrediting agencies. By such an action the Department would help to minimize the controversy in the blindness community over NAC. The strong showing at this hearing against NAC is evidence in itself that NAC does not enjoy wide recognition in its field. Thank you for the opportunity you have accorded me to be heard today. ____________________ Dr. Nemeth was followed by James Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs of the National Federation of the Blind. Here is the testimony he provided to the Advisory Committee: [PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: James Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs, National Federation of the Blind, Baltimore, Maryland.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is James Gashel, and I am appearing on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind. My address is 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230; telephone (410) 659-9314. We strongly oppose continued recognition of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) by the Secretary of Education. In this statement I will present evidence to show that NAC does not meet the Secretary's criteria for recognized accrediting agencies. The National Federation of the Blind is the principal membership organization of blind persons in the United States. We have over fifty thousand members, and the vast majority of them are blind. We have a state affiliate in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and local Federation chapters exist in most sizable population areas. In general the Federation is a self-help organization of blind people with a substantial, direct interest in the quality of education, rehabilitation, employment, and training services available to the blind everywhere in this country. The Federation is the blind speaking for themselves. Since its founding twenty-five years ago, NAC has been a harmful force in the lives of blind people. The primary purpose for placing an accrediting agency on the Secretary's list is that the group has been found to be a reliable authority on the quality of education or training offered by post-secondary educational institutions or programs within the agency's scope of activity. We submit that NAC fails to meet this test. The number of agencies affiliated with NAC is shrinking year by year, and the number of agencies that have dropped their NAC accreditation is growing. During 1991 alone seven agencies terminated their involvement in NAC. One-fourth of the agencies that once affiliated with NAC have now withdrawn. They include the Virginia School for the Blind and the Virginia Department for the Blind, serving blind adults; Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind, Washington, D.C.; Recording for the Blind, the nation's largest book transcribing organization for post-secondary students; the Division of Services to the Visually Impaired, State of South Dakota; Hadley School for the Blind, an internationally recognized correspondence school for the blind, providing services at the post-secondary level; Blind Work Association, New York; Governor Morehead School for the Blind, North Carolina; Rhode Island State Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired; Michigan School for the Blind; Kansas Division of Services for the Blind; Cleveland Society for the Blind; Oregon School for the Blind; Massachusetts Association for the Blind; and Blind Industries and Services of Maryland. These are only some of the agencies that have decided not to continue their affiliation with NAC. The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) spearheaded the creation of NAC in the 1960s and has provided most of NAC's financial support ever since. But the Foundation withdrew its funding of NAC last year because of NAC's inability to obtain more accredited member agencies and to secure other sources of substantial funding. Financial support provided by National Industries for the Blind (NIB) was also withdrawn last year. The letter from NIB's president, explaining the withdrawal of funds, gave NAC's failures in membership development and acquisition of stable financing as reasons for terminating support one year earlier than promised. It is clear that NAC cannot continue to function as anything more than the shell of an organization. There is no longer an executive director and now only one program person on NAC's staff. The organization is dependent upon volunteers for almost everything it does except the day-to-day operation of the office. As a result, although the accreditation of thirty-four agencies expires this year, only two actual site visits are scheduled so far. An agency in this situation certainly does not meet the specific criteria described in 34 CFR part 602. The criteria include nine major points. NAC fails to meet the standards for recognition in at least four respects: * Accreditation is not required for programs or students to receive federal assistance in the blindness field; * NAC is not generally accepted in the blindness field; * NAC does not have the resources to carry out its activities; and * NAC's evaluation and reaccreditation practices do not follow its own stated policies for evaluations to be made at reasonable intervals. These points will be discussed in the order in which they are listed. 1. NAC Does Not Accredit in a Field Where Accreditation Is Required for Federal Assistance. Section 602.12 (b) of the Secretary's regulations specifies that the recognized accrediting organization must operate in a field where accreditation is necessary for institutions or students to be eligible to participate in one or more federal programs. Post-secondary programs serving the blind that could apply for membership in NAC are subject to direct monitoring and audits performed by the Department of Education and other federal and state agencies. As a consequence there are no federal programs in the blindness field that have accreditation as a condition for participation by agencies or students. In Exhibit B (2) to its petition, NAC has listed thirteen agencies in nine states which it has accredited and which NAC says fall within the scope of its Department of Education recognition. The implication is that these agencies would lose federal assistance if they were not accredited. The fact is that the list provided by NAC as Exhibit B (2) is both misleading and false. During the comment period many commenters submitted evidence showing that accreditation is not required for these or other agencies to receive federal financial assistance. NAC vaguely asserts that funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration is somehow related to accreditation. With respect to the Department of Veterans Affairs, I have submitted evidence that VA funding of individuals or programs has no relationship to the accredited status of agencies in the blindness field. The VA itself has rejected NAC accreditation for the blind rehabilitation centers which it operates. NAC accreditation is also not required for agencies to receive funding under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. In a memorandum submitted during the comment period, the deputy commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration informed the advisory committee that "there are no federal requirements for accreditation of rehabilitation facilities serving clients sponsored by State rehabilitation programs." NAC has been concerned about the lack of an accreditation requirement for programs that receive federal funds. At a meeting of its Board of Directors held in November, 1990, NAC disclosed plans to lobby for federal legislation which would create an accreditation requirement for programs receiving funds under the Rehabilitation Act and other federal laws. Mr. Robert Humphreys (a Washington, D.C., attorney specializing in the disabilities field) was retained by NAC to spearhead a lobbying effort in the Congress leading to the passage of this legislation. The Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is part of the Department of Education, has said that NAC's proposed accreditation requirement is not consistent with the policies of the Bush administration. Attachment A is a list of agencies which, according to NAC, are the only post-secondary programs that fall within its scope of recognition. NAC has alleged that twelve states require accreditation as a condition for distributing federal funds to private non-profit agencies serving the blind. However, Attachment A shows that only two states, Illinois and Ohio, actually have such a requirement. That information was confirmed by way of a memorandum submitted to the Advisory Committee's staff from the Deputy Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration in the Department of Education. So the information shows that, rather than having thirteen agencies in nine states that fall within its scope of recognition, NAC has at best two agencies in two states that fall within its scope of recognition. Staff of the Rehabilitation Services Commission in Ohio will shortly recommend that NAC not be recognized as an accrediting agency in that state. [The Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission voted unanimously on February 18 to remove NAC from its list of approved accrediting bodies. See the March, 1992, issue of the Braille Monitor and the article elsewhere in this issue.] If NAC is removed from the Secretary's list of accrediting agencies, no agency within its scope of recognition will lose federal funds, because accreditation is also available from at least one other source, namely the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). In saying that accreditation has no relationship to federal funding of post-secondary programs for the blind, I am not arguing the merits of whether or not this should be the case. That would be for Congress and the Administration to decide. The point is that the Secretary of Education recognizes only accrediting agencies that perform accreditation for post- secondary programs in order for those programs to receive federal funds. That is not the case with respect to NAC, so NAC fails to meet criterion 602.12 (b). 2. NAC Is Not Generally Accepted in the Field in Which It Offers Accreditation. Section 602.14 of the Secretary's regulations specifies that the accreditation agency's policies, evaluation methods, and decisions must be accepted throughout the United States. Again the evidence shows that NAC fails to meet this criterion. It is beyond dispute that, after twenty-five years, NAC has accumulated only ninety-six member agencies. The reason is lack of acceptance, not that the standards are difficult to meet. One-fourth of the agencies that have been accredited members of NAC have now withdrawn. Attachment B shows these agencies. The seven shaded agencies terminated their membership in 1991, all of them by their own volition. In fact, NAC's membership is shrinking year by year. It should also be noted that by NAC's own admission, forty-eight of its members voted to dissolve the corporation. On pages 19 and 20 of its petition for renewal, NAC provides a list of state vocational rehabilitation agencies (both general and blind) that, according to NAC, require, strongly encourage, or recommend accreditation by NAC. This list is apparently offered to convey the impression of broad acceptance in the field. But the list is overblown in its attribution of alleged support. Information provided to the advisory committee by over eighty commenters shows that NAC's claimed support does not exist. In fact, only eight rehabilitation agencies have agreed to accept NAC accreditation. NAC is actually not recognized or accepted by the vast majority of public agencies providing post-secondary services to blind people. Attachment C shows the state vocational rehabilitation agencies that do not recognize NAC. These are only the public agencies. They are joined by hundreds of private agencies that also do not recognize NAC. Only eight of the public vocational rehabilitation agencies do recognize NAC. 3. NAC Does Not Have the Resources Necessary to Carry Out Its Accreditation Activities. Section 602.15 specifies that the accrediting agency must have or be likely to have sufficient resources to carry out its accreditation function. Financially, NAC is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. From 1967 until 1989 the American Foundation for the Blind provided NAC's principal financial support. During most years the Foundation's grants met nearly 60% of NAC's operating expenses. This arrangement changed in 1989 when the Foundation wanted to cut its level of commitment. A new financing plan then evolved in which National Industries for the Blind agreed to make up the difference resulting from AFB's diminished support. It was thought that NIB and AFB would help to keep NAC afloat for a three-year period while NAC itself would make an effort to obtain long-range support from other sources. Building membership was one of the key features of the three-year plan. In fact, the funding agreed to by AFB and NIB was contingent on NAC's success in expanding its accredited membership support base. As of July 1, 1991, both AFB and NIB ceased providing grants to NAC one year earlier than originally planned. A letter from Mr. George Mertz, NIB's president, explained his agency's decision as follows: "This decision to discontinue funding for the third year of NAC's plan to achieve financial independence was based on the fact that there was minimal progress reported by NAC in their goal of achieving this objective. It was also felt that this goal could not be accomplished during the third year of their plan." In a later comment in his letter, Mr. Mertz stated forthrightly that "the NIB Board has not and never will advocate mandatory accreditation as a means for acquiring federal funds under the Rehabilitation Act. Also the Board was very emphatic that NIB has not and will not be involved in any lobbying effort to promote this concept." NAC's 1991 fiscal year closed on June 30, 1991. For the year which ended at that time, NAC spent in excess of $460,000. The same is true of the year before. Income for this two-year period trailed spending by $60,000. I have rounded these numbers for simplicity. Here are some more exact figures. As of June 30, 1990, NAC reported a fund balance of $118,307. However, a financial report made by the NAC treasurer to the NAC board in April, 1991, reported a fund balance of $82,145 at the end of March, 1991. By the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1991, NAC's reserves were down to $64,179. These figures show that NAC's spending was out of balance with income even before the AFB and NIB grants were withdrawn. For fiscal year 1992 NAC is anticipating that its income will be down by 47% from the amount actually received in 1991. NAC's currently adopted budget, which was submitted to the accreditation and institutional eligibility staff in September, 1991, projects income of $216,065 for fiscal 1992 and spending of precisely the same amount. Roughly 37 percent of this budget (almost $80,000 of the projected income) is soft money. For example, in excess of $35,000 is shown as grants from foundations, and $27,000 from "other." The DOE criteria suggest that letters of commitment should be furnished to support the budget, but there are no such letters accompanying NAC's petition. NAC's actual performance last year and so far this year suggests that its current income estimates are overblown. For instance, one NAC report, sent to its members in April, 1991, candidly acknowledged that income for the first 6 months of 1991 had been under budget by $65,716 and that grants which had been anticipated from two foundations and one corporation would not be received. NAC will also be losing the dues of seven agencies whose membership ended in 1991. NAC's newly accredited agencies are extremely small, so their dues will not make up for the amount being lost from the withdrawal of substantially larger dues-paying members. As of December 31, 1991, NAC's fund balance had diminished from $64,179 to $63,895. With respect to income, NAC was on or over its revenue estimates in two categories and below budget in seven. Referring to the figures which I have described as soft money, NAC has received only 12% of the amount budgeted from foundations and corporations, and one-third of the amount anticipated from other sources. Only 26% of the donations hoped for from individuals was actually received with 50% of the year now gone. Sales of NAC's standards have been only 27% of the amount expected. This means that fewer agencies are indicating an interest in joining NAC at some point in the future. It is true that NAC has received 49.8% of expected income half-way through the year, but there are serious problems as shown by these figures. The remaining time left in this year will tell the story. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround, NAC's fund balance will show a further decline at the end of the year. NAC has already spent 53% of the amount budgeted. In travel alone, the amount spent so far has been almost 71% of the amount budgeted. Spending has also exceeded the budget in contract services, for dues and subscriptions, and for occupancy. From the figures available the absence of program activity is also evident. In the six months of operation since July, 1991, NAC spent only $543 of a budgeted $4,000 on postage; for supplies, only $550 of the budgeted $4,000. Only $129 has been spent on printing. Cost of publications sold was only $281, and the total income from publications sold during this six-month period has been a princely $682. These figures demonstrate the virtually complete absence of a viable program. The lack of financial resources is having a devastating impact on NAC's performance of programmatic commitments. As a consequence the meaning of accreditation is being diluted. In point of fact, accreditation by NAC has never been a mark of quality; now it is even less so. This is because the accredited status of many of NAC's members is actually being extended from year to year without evaluation of the members' programs. In some instances agencies that are not current in the payment of their dues to NAC are simply carried along as fully-accredited members. In the light of the agency's desperate need for income from any source, the only credible explanation is that NAC is afraid to lose more members. NAC started fiscal year 1991 with forty-one member agencies coming due for evaluation. Many of these agencies had been extended without evaluation from prior years. The accreditation of others was expiring in the normal cycle. Attachment D is a list of these forty-one agencies. Roughly half of them were extended without evaluation--sixteen carried over to 1992 and four to 1993. Of the remaining twenty-one agency members, seven withdrew from membership in NAC by their own volition, and fourteen were reaccredited during the year. NAC started fiscal year 1992 with thirty-six agencies coming due for evaluation, five fewer than were due for evaluation in 1991. The agencies currently due for evaluation are shown in Attachment E. Note that sixteen of these agencies were also shown on Attachment D because they were simply extended from one year to the next. Following NAC's usual pattern, only a fraction of them will actually be reviewed this year, and the rest will be moved forward to next year or the year after. As for the backlog, the raw figures are a little deceptive. Since seven agencies withdrew in 1991, the backlog dropped from forty-one to thirty- four. Though it may appear that NAC is decreasing its backlog, this erosion is achieved by losing members. At some point NAC may not show a backlog at all, but there will also be no members left to worry about. The conclusion is that NAC's resources are not sufficient even to keep up with the periodic expiration of the accredited status of its existing members--never mind accrediting new members and keeping its standards current as well. In 1991 NAC could reaccredit only fourteen of its forty-one member agencies then due for review, and twenty were carried over to the future. As already shown, a group of thirty-six agencies have their accreditation status expiring this year. In 1990, before the loss of its major grants, NAC reviewed eight agencies and extended eighteen. The point is that NAC did not have in 1990 and does not now have the resources to evaluate even its member agencies at their regularly scheduled times, and as a result the backlog of agencies carried over is out of hand. NAC's staff resources are also insufficient to support meaningful accreditation activities. The position of executive director was eliminated as of June 1, 1991. The associate executive director is serving as a "program administrator." This is the only professional staff position left under NAC's reduced budget. The amount budgeted for compensation of staff is $86,054, apparently including fringe benefits. Based on the June 30, 1990, audited financial statement, NAC provides fringe benefits at the rate of twenty-four percent of total personnel costs. Assuming that the fringe benefit rate has not changed in proportion to total compensation, the amount now being paid in actual salaries is $65,401. This is hardly enough to maintain anything other than a caretaker staff commitment at the rates of compensation expected and paid in New York City. 4. NAC's Evaluation and Reaccreditation Practices Do Not Follow Its Own Stated Policies for Evaluations to Be Made at Reasonable Intervals. Section 602.16 (b) specifies that the agency must revaluate its accredited members at reasonable intervals. No one disputes that NAC has a written policy for reevaluation of its member agencies. However, we have just shown that the policy is often not strictly observed. According to the policy, when an agency first affiliates with NAC, it enters a five-year cycle of review, but accredited status is sometimes granted for less than five years. There are many instances in which agencies are extended into a new accreditation cycle without receiving any apparent evaluation. Attachment F is a list of agencies for which the accredited status expired in 1991 or before. Each of the agencies on this list still appears on NAC's membership list even though there is no record of the specific reaccreditation action that is supposed to be necessary to continue the membership. A careful consideration of NAC's frequent practice of postponing reviews of member agencies leads necessarily to the conclusion that many of the agencies shown on Attachment F will not be reviewed even at the new date specified. Under these circumstances it cannot be said that NAC has a policy of reviewing its members at reasonable intervals when it often does not follow its own policy. During 1991 NAC followed its policy with respect to fourteen programs and failed to do so with respect to many others. It is therefore clear that this performance does not comport with criterion 602.16 (b). Conclusion. The ultimate basis for retaining any accrediting organization on the Secretary of Education's list of recognized agencies is that the organization serves as a reliable authority on the quality of post-secondary programs receiving federal assistance. Judged by this standard, NAC does not measure up. If it did, agencies for the blind would be anxious to sign up for accreditation by NAC. But exactly the opposite is the case. NAC has stated that there are five hundred or more agencies serving the blind that would be potential candidates for its accreditation. However, in twenty-five years of trying, NAC has managed to convince only ninety-six of these agencies to enlist and remain as its accredited members. The number of NAC's member agencies is actually shrinking year by year. Membership is extended without timely evaluation. Resources are dwindling, and even the principal professional position in the organization-- the executive director--has been eliminated. This embarrassing record hardly demonstrates national acceptance. More to the point, virtually half of NAC's members voted to dissolve the corporation. During the months since that vote NAC has barely managed to stay afloat. In the acknowledged view of some of its board members, they did not want to give up "without a fight." Regardless of their efforts to keep NAC alive as a corporation, there is no question that the organization has ceased to conduct a viable accreditation program. Some would say that it never had one. While NAC is still technically alive as a legal entity, it is not truly in business as an accrediting agency. Its failure to be accepted by agencies in the blindness field is persuasive evidence that NAC is not regarded as a reliable authority on the quality of programs within its sphere of operation. This is the ultimate test for the Secretary of Education's recognition, and NAC has failed to measure up. ____________________ The final speaker opposing the inclusion of NAC on the Department of Education's list was R. Creig Slayton, Director of the Iowa Department for the Blind. Here are his remarks: [PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: R. Creig Slayton, Director, Iowa Department for the Blind, and Immediate Past President, National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, Des Moines, Iowa.] I have been employed in the federal-state vocational rehabilitation program for over twenty-six years. For the past five years I have been Director of the Iowa Department for the Blind and active in national organizations which represent the state vocational rehabilitation agencies. I serve on the Executive Committee of the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation, and I am immediate past president of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind. I come to you today as a concerned director of a state vocational rehabilitation agency serving blind persons to request that this advisory Committee oppose the U.S. Department of Education's recognition of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) as a suitable accrediting organization. I am not certain that post-secondary training services for blind persons need special accreditation. The Rehabilitation Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Education does not require such accreditation because they, themselves, are heavily into monitoring activities. However, I do know that NAC is not the organization to fill this role of primary accrediting body for the field. NAC was conceived and born in controversy, has failed to meet expectations, and continues to exist in a semicomatose state. Many of its standards are seen as irrelevant, not uniformly applied, and scoffed at by blind consumers. Most state agencies for the blind choose not to recognize NAC as a suitable accrediting organization. Private agencies for the blind have likewise failed to answer the call to be accredited by NAC. As a result NAC has begun to offer its questionable accreditation to diverse groups of service providers. For example, in the State of Iowa, NAC recently accredited a hospital-based low vision center which provides medical eye examinations and prescriptive lenses. Perhaps NAC's greatest disservice to rehabilitation is its failure to recognize that the time has come for it to step aside and clear the way for a new accrediting body. In conclusion, the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped has failed to develop relevant standards, to apply standards in a uniform manner, and most important, it has failed to achieve the respect which is absolutely essential to a standard-setting organization. ____________________ That was what the immediate past president of the NCSAB had to say about NAC, and when the testimony was complete, the Committee began asking questions of the NAC representatives. It was clear that, having no grasp of the NFB's efforts through the years to participate meaningfully in the creation and deliberations of NAC, Committee members were distressed to see the steadiness of the NFB's determination to see that NAC ceases once and for all to be a divisive force in the field of work with the blind. They kept returning to the notion that the NFB could participate "adversarially" in NAC--whatever that may mean. But even with these misgivings, they were clearly dissatisfied with NAC's explanations and promises of reform. John Hirschfeld, the member charged with carefully reading all the documents in this case, complained about NAC's budget, which he clearly thought to be simplistic with its category of "other" that conveniently provides the $27,700 needed to balance the NAC budget this year. He then asked whether AER and the ACB were prepared to underline their strong endorsement of NAC with contributions. Ms. Westman explained that both organizations are sponsoring members of NAC and therefore make an annual contribution based on their size. Mr. Hirschfeld then said, "So the answer would be that they do not?" [meaning that neither organization is likely to make large grants to NAC]. Ms. Westman replied, "Yes they do" [an answer which reflected a narrow interpretation of Mr. Hirschfeld's question]. At that point the subject was dropped, but it was clear that the Committee understood that no matter how noisy AER and ACB support of NAC may be, it will never translate into substantial financial assistance. Several Committee members raised questions to which NAC representatives gave misleading answers. When asked if it were true that NAC standards prevent member agencies from employing blind orientation and mobility instructors, Ms. Westman answered that they do not. Mr. Gashel was left to point out that, since the standards require that such teachers be certified by AER, which does not allow blind professionals to be certified, the effect of the standard is to prevent blind people from teaching cane travel. Dr. Welsh said directly that there was nothing to prevent NFB members from becoming members of the NAC Board, a statement which is technically correct. Mr. Gashel, however, explained that, since the NFB is not an agency seeking accreditation or a sponsoring member of NAC, there is no mechanism by which NFB representatives could be elected to the Board--a concept rendered ludicrous by the long and painful history of Board harassment of NFB representatives in the early days of the accrediting body. The Committee then spent some little time fretting over the problems that would be faced by the thirteen NAC-accredited agencies on NAC's list of post-secondary institutions, if NAC were to be removed from the Secretary's list. Dr. Welsh admitted again that none of the thirteen received federal money now that they would not be entitled to, even if NAC were off the list, and Mr. Gashel pointed out that many other NAC-accredited agencies do post-secondary instruction of various kinds despite their not having been included on NAC's list of thirteen. At this point one member of the Committee showed a shrewd grasp of the central question facing the Committee. The text is lifted from the official transcript prepared by the Department of Education. Here is what she said: SISTER MARY ANDREW: I was a reader in May, '91, and had worked my way through a considerable stack of material before the agency withdrew its petition at that time--while the issue of whether it would dissolve was being dealt with. I am now more up to date on that issue, and I think it's important to think about the link between the agency's function as an accrediting agency and being on the Secretary's list. If the agency were not on the Secretary's list, it could continue as an accrediting agency. It could continue to accredit the thirteen post-secondary programs and the other eighty-three programs that it now has and any additional programs that would apply for that accreditation. States could continue to recognize NAC for purposes of dispersing their vocational rehabilitation funds if they so choose. My concern, and I think I have it clear now, is whether we would be hurting students if this agency were not on the Secretary's list, and I think the answer to that question is that as of now we would not be hurting any students if this agency were not on the Secretary's list because no students in post- secondary programs accredited by this agency are now applying for or receiving Title IV funding. And even in the States that require accreditation by NAC for vocational rehab funding, they don't require that NAC have recognition by the Secretary. So I want to suggest that we look at the issue in a narrower framework than the future of NAC, because NAC can work out its future apart from action that would be taken by this group regarding recognition by the Secretary. I'm suggesting this because I think this is very complex. There's a lot of strongly-held belief on both sides of the issue, but I think that's almost irrelevant to the work of this Committee because there isn't any current link to any Federal mandate in terms of eligibility for programs. The Committee continued to wrangle and agonize among themselves over the complex matter before them. An excerpt from their discussion will demonstrate their perplexity: MR. KUNKEL: I want to present a case that says that here's an organization [NAC] that was not a full enough organization the last time we met even to present the status of its business. Here's an organization in which our own staff found two criteria very, very weak, one of which is the whole health of the organization. So I'm sitting here wondering at what point do we really say an agency is so weak in any of the Secretary's criteria that we would say to the Secretary, "This body is not a reliable body to do business in the name of the Secretary" I am very close to saying that about what I've heard here today--what I saw six months ago when hardly a person could come into this room and tell us about a board meeting that was going to go on, at which it sounded to me today like the board meeting even voted to dissolve at that meeting. So I think there's total, strong evidence to say that the weaknesses that the staff found are not corrected. In my judgment, they are even more profound than the way they were written up. At what time do we finally sit back and say, "The word is no. We recommend to the Secretary that you do not continue this body on your list"? They know precisely what they ought to do. They ought to get their shop in order, and they ought to demonstrate in performance the kinds of things we've heard said hopefully today. The history of this presentation, the hopeful message, was a really short history. In fact, I'm not sure it was even history yet. I heard hope in the future. I heard no accomplished record. I hear everything is going downhill instead of uphill. So why should we tell the Secretary to continue recognition, even for a year? Let's tell the Secretary, we recommend no--if the Secretary in a more caring way wants to give them another six months or a year, it's totally in his prerogative. But we looked at the data on a bankrupt program and a bankrupt dollar, and there is no reason to keep saying yes. CHAIRMAN TROW: Thank you Richard. Bernard? DR. FRYSHMAN: Yes. Richard, you said two things. You talked about the bankrupt program and bankrupt dollar. MR. KUNKEL: Yes. DR. FRYSHMAN: Could you expand on where you see the bankrupt program? MR. KUNKEL: I'm not at all satisfied with the evidence about why groups were moved on. Apparently there was no body to carry on the business. That's a bankrupt program of an accrediting agency, as far as I'm concerned. And I don't care whether the number's one or four. They have not been carrying on the business of an accrediting body as far as I'm concerned. DR. FRYSHMAN: I just want to continue with you, because you were also the head of an accrediting body. I'm looking for clarification in my own mind, and I'll use you as a sounding board, if I may. Are their standards satisfactory to you? MR. KUNKEL: I'm not making judgment on their standards. I'm making a judgment on two of the Secretary's criteria for compliance. I'm very concerned about the overall carrying out of their business and their financial stability and a workforce to carry off their task. I'm paraphrasing the language, but it's in the compliance criteria, and you know it is. DR. FRYSHMAN: But in terms of the standards per se, that's-- MR. KUNKEL: That's not the grounds I'm finding, so I don't want to debate their standards. DR. FRYSHMAN: Okay, all right. That's-- MR. KUNKEL: My argument is based on two strong criteria that I think they ought to behave positively and the evidence is weak. DR. FRYSHMAN: The reason I'm pushing in this direction is twofold. Number one, I do respect the judgment of staff. I think that they had an opportunity to review this agency in a way that I didn't, and I suspect they were aware of all the difficulties and all the problems and so forth. Based on the report they gave, my judgment is that NAC does meet the standards in large measure. The other thing that concerns me, and I have other concerns too, but the main, the big concern that's troubling everybody, is the--well, the virtual bankruptcy, the money problem. But I would venture to say that they're not the first accrediting agency to suddenly come up against the terrible drop in assets. We had one this morning...I was part of the group about five years ago that voted to ignore the fact that that agency lost as much money as they did and gave them another chance to continue. Richard, were you there too? I think so. MR. KUNKEL: Yes. I'm not going to let that be a norm. DR. FRYSHMAN: No, no, no. [Laughter.] DR. FRYSHMAN: I hope that we won't ever find that, but it seems to me that what this agency is facing is not the sort of thing that happens all the time. I'm influenced by the fact that this agency has been in existence since 1975 as a recognized body. This isn't a Johnny-come-lately group. This isn't a fly-by- night organization. They're a body which has merited the confidence of the Secretary for many, many years, longer than most other agencies on the list, I would venture to say. So dropping them is, I think, a precipitous--well, I wouldn't say it's a precipitous action, but it's a serious action. It's something that I would not do easily, and I'm groping and grasping for a reason to convince everybody else, in particular myself, why we should not do this sort of thing. I-- MR. KUNKEL: You won't get any help from me. [Laughter.] DR. FRYSHMAN: Just on the face of it, I would be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the staff report as it now stands. I'm troubled by the lack of funds, but I haven't seen anything of a fatal nature. I do recognize the emotion in the letters, in the presentations, the fact that so many people came at such terrible inconvenience--I appreciate it and I understand that there's a real serious factor taking place here, but as was pointed out earlier, this kind of energy put into creating another agency would have had some very positive outcomes, and I suspect that this body would have been prepared to recognize an additional agency if there were no possibility of coming together. I do sense also that there is a willingness or at least a readiness on the part of this body to open its procedures. I think we've all seen situations where there were groups of individuals at loggerheads, and they have come close. We have an almost merger, and I suspect that that's also something that could continue. What interests me, and this was mentioned by people whose accomplishments are unquestioned, there are still ninety-six bodies which seek accreditation. That means there is something valuable. It's true, it's ninety-six out of five hundred--that's not a very impressive number. Nonetheless, for many of these organizations, money is not a consideration. They're not there because they want access to the Federal dollar. They're there for a different reason. I don't really understand that reason, and I wish some of these schools were here to discuss that with us, but I see these all as favorable indicators, and if I had to vote right now, I probably would vote to support the staff recommendation. CHAIRMAN TROW: You may have to pretty soon. George? DR. PRUITT: Yes, I have a question, again for the staff. The customary action of the Committee is five years, and staff is recommending two, and I think I read in that that you're trying to give them a shortened time period because the jury's out. There's a built-in skepticism from the staff view about whether this [agency] is going to make it or not. MR. ROGERS [member of the Committee's staff]: That's correct, Dr. Pruitt. We also thought that a lesser amount of time would not be sufficient for them to carry through the fund- raising effort which they are now making and the reorganization of their program. DR. PRUITT: The number--I am confused about the numbers here. I thought the number we were dealing with was thirteen institutions. MR. ROGERS: That is correct. DR. PRUITT: So it's not-- CHAIRMAN TROW: Post-secondary. The rest are-- DR. PRUITT: The scope of this group is concerned about thirteen? MR. ROGERS: Yes. DR. PRUITT: They have ninety-six that they can look to for support? Usually accrediting [agencies]depend on the people they accredit to provide the resources, but if their universe of resources is limited to thirteen institutions, it's unlikely that that's going to be sufficient. MR. SAUNDERS [Director, Higher Education Program Management Service]: Let me clarify that for just a second. It's only the thirteen post-secondary institutions that you and we are concerned about. The staff report for two years is yes, a very minimal period, and we have indicated in there that if you go along with that, we intend to monitor this very closely over the two years. It's going to be very difficult to monitor it in a very short period of time because there'll be very few institutions coming up. But we will go on those site visits. We will be sure what standards are, that the standards are met. We've been on one site visit in the last year. That's all we had an opportunity to go on. That one appeared to be satisfactory, but that's only a sample of one. CHAIRMAN TROW: Sister Mary, and then Richard. MR. ROGERS: I did attend both a board meeting and a committee meeting also. CHAIRMAN TROW: I'm sorry. SISTER MARY ANDREW: Again, I want to emphasize that, as I see it, an action on our part to recommend to the Secretary not to continue to recognize this agency doesn't have anything to do in any direct way with its future as an accrediting agency because it is already recognized by the ninety-six or the thirteen or the however many you want to count for reasons that have nothing to do with Federal Title IV programs, and it would be entirely possible for them to continue to function; to build their financial base; to grow; and, if at some point it becomes important for some of their members to qualify for Title IV funding, to come back in here again and ask to be recognized. So there are other agencies that function very well without ever being on the Secretary's list because there isn't a need for them to be there for purposes of Title IV funding and because they don't choose to be there for purposes of recognition of their procedures. So these are two separate issues in my mind. MR. PAPPAS [Executive Director of the Committee Staff]: Maybe I can just clarify one thing--the point about Title IV. Accreditation and recognition by the Secretary are used in a number of ways: by States, local governments, and other kinds of agencies, besides Title IV; just so you all know that Title IV is not just the only thing that recognition does. SISTER MARY ANDREW: But we have clarified that vocational rehabilitation funding does not depend on the Secretary's recommendation. ____________________ And so the discussion ranged over the issues in question. Gradually it became evident that a majority of the Committee neither grasped fully the actual situation which NAC has created for itself nor had the courage to take a stand other than that recommended by its staff. Not a single member of the Committee was prepared to speak in support of NAC, but most of them were unwilling to take a part, however peripheral, in ending the group's agony. John Hirschfeld, the man designated as the reader in this case, eventually moved that the committee accept the staff recommendation to continue NAC on the Secretary's list for two more years with close supervision and audit reports required. The general attitude of the Committee was captured accurately by the member who seconded this motion. This is the comment he made in explanation of his second: MR. GUESS: I appreciate people who wage a struggle for survival, and my reading of the material presented here today, listening to the testimony that I heard, indicated to me that we have an organization who has been in business for a number of years who hit upon difficult times. I guess during the course of my life, have also hit upon difficult times and appreciated those who gave me an opportunity to fail again. And it would appear to me that the only thing they've asked for is the opportunity to fail. That also gives them the opportunity to succeed, and I think that's important based on my own personal travails in life that people be given. ____________________ There you have it, and with that statement the Committee voted eight to two to recommend to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander that NAC be given a chance to fail yet again. No one on the Committee could find a good word to say for NAC or even muster much hope for its future. Steve Pappas, Executive Director of the Committee's staff, characterized the recommendation to the Secretary as constituting a message of grave warning to NAC, not a mandate. NAC had hoped for five more years of recognition by the Department of Education. It was looking for vindication and renewed respectability. Instead the best it can expect is close supervision and the ignominy of frequent audit reports. That is the most that can come out of this debacle, for by mid-March Secretary Alexander had still not made a final decision. NAC may boast of this experience as a victory, but another such and NAC, like King Pyrrhus before it, will be undone. [PHOTO: Barbara Pierce standing at podium microphone. CAPTION: Barbara Pierce, Presdent of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio.] NAC DOWN FOR THE COUNT IN OHIO by Barbara Pierce In the March, 1992, issue of the Braille Monitor we reported the unanimous February 18 decision of the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission (ORSC) to remove NAC (the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped) from the Commission's list of approved accrediting bodies. It was a tremendous step forward for the blind citizens of Ohio, so no one was surprised when NAC reacted with howls of outrage and vehement accusations of unfair practice. The next step in the implementation of the new policy was to have it reviewed by the Joint Committee for Agency Rule Review, a body composed of equal numbers of State Senators and Representatives. The Committee's job is to see that state agencies establish or revise policies only within their statutory authority, and the Committee tries to make certain that no new policy is in conflict with established state regulations. The Committee's authority is restricted to these narrow statutory questions. This fact, however, did not stop the NAC defenders. They asked to testify before the Committee, and they generated a few letters to members of the Committee, urging that the proposed rule change be sent back to the Commission for further consideration. In the meantime, knowing that Ohio's inclusion of NAC on its list of approved accrediting bodies had been used by NAC representatives in the U.S. Department of Education hearing on February 4 (see the article elsewhere in this issue) to argue that Ohio required NAC accreditation for agencies doing state contract work, Robert Rabe, Administrator of the ORSC, wrote to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, notifying him of the RSC's decision. Here is Mr. Rabe's letter: Columbus, Ohio March 2, 1992 Mr. Lamar Alexander, Secretary U.S. Department of Education Washington, D.C. Dear Secretary Alexander: It is my understanding that you are considering whether to retain certification (by the Department of Education) of the National Accreditation Council (NAC). During this process, I understand that you were informed by NAC that the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission (ORSC) required NAC accreditation for the purchases of rehabilitation services. This letter is meant to inform you that the Commissioners of ORSC unanimously voted, on February 18, 1992, no longer to require NAC accreditation. We have been provided information that indicates to us that NAC can no longer provide accreditation services on a national basis. The deletion of NAC is projected to be effective after final administration review by the State of Ohio and a vote by the Commissioners on March 21, 1992. If you have any questions regarding this action, please contact me. Sincerely, Robert L. Rabe, Administrator State of Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission ____________________ That was the text of Administrator Rabe's letter, and one can only hope that the information it communicated was useful to the Secretary in his deliberations. March 10 was set as the date for the meeting of the Joint Committee for Agency Rule Review at which the RSC policy was to be considered. As president of the Ohio affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, I decided that I had better be present at the hearing, and I was glad I was there. The general counsel for the Rehabilitation Services Commission presented a succinct summary of the involved process by which the Commission went about notifying interested parties and the general public of its intention to consider revising the administrative rule which includes the list of approved accrediting bodies. Interested agencies and members of the RSC's Consumer Advisory Council received clearly written notices of the public hearing and invitations to submit comments prior to that meeting. Given the virtual programmatic and financial bankruptcy of NAC, the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio would have been remiss if it had done anything other than submit information to the Commission arguing that the time was ripe for removing NAC from its list because NAC could obviously not provide the RSC with assurance that its member agencies had met standards of good practice. The general counsel then recounted the conclusions which the Commission had reached in the process of making its decision. He described NAC's inability to reaccredit its member agencies in a timely fashion and the financial crisis that has exacerbated this grave problem. He then pointed out that the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, the professional organization of public agencies serving blind consumers, had refused steadfastly in recent years to endorse NAC despite repeated attempts by NAC supporters to have it do so. This conscious refusal to take positive action on the part of the NCSAB was interpreted by the Commission as a clear statement of the professional organization's reservations about NAC. The general counsel said that the Commission was uneasy about NAC's method of recruiting the teams of professionals who make on-site visits. He explained that CARF (the accrediting body which evaluates general rehabilitation facilities, including an increasing number of agencies serving the blind) temporarily hires the professionals that do its reviews. This establishes a professional and official relationship between CARF and the team and helps to insure that reports will be completed quickly and objectively. The long-standing NAC system of having the agency being studied pay the team has always had the appearance of compromising the impartiality of NAC's studies. Now that unpaid volunteers are being recruited, there is even more reason to fear that the system will break down. The tendency will be to find volunteers close to home among the very group of professional colleagues with which the agency staff work in regional and statewide organizations. Moreover, the people most likely to rise to the call are those who, or whose employers, are most sympathetic to NAC and are therefore likely to underwrite the cost of staff time away for the on-site visit. In addition, if NAC cannot find a professional who is expert in a particular aspect of the agency's program, the temptation will be to ignore the gap and fill in with whoever is willing to come. The RSC does not believe that this group of problems and policies can be combined in a nationwide accrediting body capable of providing trustworthy evaluations. The NAC supporters were led by Dr. Richard Welsh from Pittsburgh, who had carried out the same assignment a month earlier before the U.S. Department of Education's Advisory Committee. With him were two agency directors whose Ohio facilities are currently accredited by NAC and two members of the American Council of the Blind, including the volunteer Executive Director of the ACB state office. Dr. Welsh covered many of the same points he had made in the earlier hearing. The only notable departure from his defense before the Department of Education was his assertion that in this country there is no indicator of excellence for accrediting bodies in this field, other than the Secretary of Education's list of approved agencies. He then explained that the Department had conducted an exhaustive hearing in February examining NAC and, as a result, decided to retain NAC on its list. The conclusion which he drew from this inaccurate summary of the action of the Advisory Committee was that the Ohio RSC had removed an accrediting body in good standing from its list of approved organizations. The National Federation of the Blind's testimony eventually corrected the misinformation provided by Dr. Welsh, but it is interesting to note just how much weight NAC places on the DOE list even though none of NAC's member agencies would lose federal funds if it were to be removed from that list. Although the committee patiently sifted through the tangle of defensive explanations and self-serving justifications, the only point in which the members seemed interested was the question of whether the RSC had given due notice of the public hearing and of the matter to be considered in the administrative rule under consideration. One of the two agency directors admitted that Ohio agencies had received the notice, and the copy of the notice that the Committee had in its possession indicated that the entire text of the rule had been reproduced. Much of the Federation's testimony was devoted to clearing up the points of confusion created by the NAC supporters. Richard Oestreich, Executive Director of the Vision Center of Central Ohio, had confused and concerned the Committee by strongly implying that if NAC accreditation were not acceptable to the state agency, his agency, which does a great deal of business with the RSC, would be powerless to train blind people for the state. That would mean, he suggested with a straight face, that blind people would not get the rehabilitation they need. It was left for me to point out that the Cleveland Society for the Blind, which does even more business with the state in most years, disaffiliated from NAC almost a decade ago and continues to contract with the state because of its CARF accreditation. The primary ACB spokesman opined that he knew everyone at RSC headquarters and that it was inconceivable that a public hearing could have been planned and executed in which NAC was discussed without his being informed. As a member of the public who was at that crowded hearing, I could assure the Committee that plenty of Ohioans had heard of the meeting and were present to comment. As so often happens in such official gatherings, the end of the committee meeting was anticlimactic. When all was said and done, the Committee recognized that it had wandered into the cross-fire between two warring parties. The members took refuge in the narrow definition of their responsibility. There was never any question about whether the Rehabilitation Services Commission had the authority to remove the name of one accrediting body from a list that it had constructed in the first place, and it was obvious that no other statutes or regulations could conflict with the revised RSC policy. So the Joint Committee refused to intervene, and the administrative rule was returned to the Rehabilitation Services Commission for final approval at its April meeting. Of course, NAC representatives asked to attend the April RSC meeting--which, at the time of this writing, has not yet occurred. When the April meeting is held, the NAC supporters will be addressing the body which reviewed the evidence in the first place and voted unanimously to remove NAC from the list of acceptable accrediting organizations. Even so, Yogi Berra was, of course, right: "It ain't over 'til it's over," but in Ohio it's getting close. A POWERFUL TESTIMONY FOR BRAILLE From the Editor: This article appeared in the February, 1992, Observer, the newsletter of our Montana affiliate. It is one more evidence of the need for the emphasis we continue to place on Braille: Carolyn Brock is a relatively new member of the Montana affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, having joined just about a year ago. She is a French teacher at Big Sky High School in Missoula. She also has very limited eyesight. Last year Mrs. Brock applied for but did not receive one of the NFB scholarships. At that time she was not familiar with Braille. However, the literature that came with the application, "started me thinking about learning Braille, doing more mobility training, and adopting various alternative techniques that have vastly improved my life this past year," she says. She now writes excellent grade two Braille. The following is excerpted from a letter of January 27, written in Braille by Mrs. Brock, and is a powerful testimony in support of Braille literacy: "You may remember that I spent four months in France this fall. The trip was wonderful, and I learned a great deal. As I was just starting to read Braille in English, I was very enthusiastic about adding the French system to my repertoire. There was no organization for the blind in the little town where I was living, so I contacted the group in Dijon, the regional capital. The people there were so helpful and hospitable; Charles and Diana would not have gotten a warmer welcome. They ordered the necessary material from Paris for me, and gave me all the help I needed to start reading and writing French. "On their recommendation, I visited two organizations in Paris during the two weeks we spent there in November. I was always given the same enthusiastic welcome. I saw the computer adaptations they are using: the visual enhancement and voice synthesis systems I worked with at the University of Montana last summer, and also the Braille display the Europeans are now using. I was also able to order a year's subscription to a magazine in French grade two Braille, a wonderfully sophisticated system which reduces a text to about one-third its grade one length. I have not been able to read in French for years, and I am thrilled! "I could not have accomplished all this without the encouragement and expertise of David Bell of the Missoula Visual Services who not only encouraged me in learning Braille, but is also extremely up to date about technological developments abroad, as well as in the United States. "Please continue your efforts to encourage blind and visually impaired people, adults as well as children, to learn Braille. It has given me back my sense of literacy and put me back in touch with the world of learning." [PHOTO: Columbia Room, filled with seated attendees. CAPTION: As usual, it was standing room only at the Sunday night briefing of the 1992 Washington Seminar.] [PHOTO: Judy Sanders hands materials to visitors to the Mercury Room. CAPTION: Judy Sanders (right) hands out materials in the Mercury Room as eager Federationists prepare for visits to Capitol Hill.] [PHOTO: Four blind students seated, preparing for dialogue of skit. CAPTION: Left to right Heather Kirkwood (Kansas), David Cohen (Ohio), Pam Dubel (Ohio), and Holly Pilcher (Massachusetts) take part in "The Young and the Skillless," a skit written especially for the Mid-Winter Conference of the National Association of Blind Students by Jerry Whittle of Louisiana.] THE WASHINGTON SEMINAR: HARD WORK, EXCITEMENT, AND FUN IN FEBRUARY In most parts of the country February is a month that needs help. It's cold, dreary, and gray; and stimulating activity is welcome to everyone. Federationists enthusiastically refer to the Washington Seminar as the most important event of the winter social season because it bursts onto the calendar at a time when everyone is eager for some excitement. This year the dates of the actual seminar were February 2 to 5, and as usual the first people on the scene were the college and graduate students as well as other Federationists particularly interested in the work of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS). The Students Division's Mid-Winter Conference was scheduled for Saturday, February 1, 1992, and by Friday evening scores of students had checked in at the Holiday Inn Capitol and were ready for the pre-conference party. There were rumors that some people never made it to bed that night, but everyone was on hand early Saturday morning for the conference opening. There were a number of thought-provoking agenda items, but far and away the funniest was a play, written by Jerry Whittle of Louisiana and performed by a number of members of the student division. It was titled "The Young and the Skill-less," and it was a soap-operatic rendering of the adventures of a lovely but skill-less young college student who finds life-long competence and immediate personal satisfaction by taking the advice of friends who urge her to leave school and get the training she needs from a good adult rehabilitation center. Much of the play's humor derived from the audience's knowing the actors and its recognition of the character-types being portrayed. From small group discussions on the nature of equality to presentations about two cases of injustice on university campuses experienced by NABS members, the day was filled with stimulating ideas and talk, and everyone learned much from the discussion. Scott LaBarre and the other members of the NABS Board of Directors can take well-deserved pride in the event. As usual the high point of the day was the evening banquet emceed by Ollie Cantos, President of the California Association of Blind Students and Member of the NABS Board of Directors. Diane McGeorge was the featured speaker for the evening, and she gathered the themes of the day into a moving and inspirational challenge to her audience to live up to the Federation's ideals and to rededicate themselves to helping all blind people to succeed. Sunday, February 2, nearly a hundred people piled into the NFB bus and several vans for the trip to Baltimore and a tour of the National Center for the Blind and the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind at our national headquarters. The group was back in time for the Associates workshop in the afternoon and some visiting with friends before the actual seminar began. All day hundreds of eager Federationists had been pouring into the hotel in preparation for the 5:00 p.m. briefing. Cassette recordings of the legislative memorandum and the three fact sheets we were to discuss with members of Congress were circulating, and by mid-afternoon the Mercury Room, the headquarters for data collection and material distribution, was open for business on the second floor. As always, Sandy Halverson and her dedicated and efficient staff ran this aspect of the seminar with speed and accuracy, taking reports, keeping track of appointments, and producing summary counts when Mr. Gashel needed them. By five o'clock a standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 filled the Columbia Room for the briefing. Dr. Jernigan and President Maurer brought the group up to date on nationwide NFB activities of national importance. Then James Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs, discussed the issues we were taking to Capitol Hill and answered questions. He also announced that those who wished to do so were encouraged to join a group attending the Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Department of Education Advisory Committee on Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility that would be considering the request of the National Accreditation Council (NAC) for five more years on the Department's list of approved accrediting bodies. (See the article elsewhere in this issue.) As it turned out, many appointments with Members of Congress were scheduled for Tuesday and could not be moved, so a large percentage of Federationists in Washington were compelled to miss the hearing. But the crowd that did attend filled the large meeting room at the DuPont Plaza Hotel. The group was large but silent, as Mr. Gashel had asked people to be. One small but impressive mark of the crowd's dignity and discipline occurred when, early in the proceedings, the chairman of the committee indicated that the observers could now be excused so that the committee could carry on its own discussion. His intention was to have the NAC and third-party witnesses leave the table and return to their seats, but virtually everyone in the audience assumed that he wanted the room cleared. The order came as a shock and a keen disappointment since we were there to observe the committee's deliberations, but without a murmur or protest, or even a word of whispered comment, the group of hundreds rose and prepared to file out of the room. Seeing what was happening and recognizing the misunderstanding, the chairman quickly clarified his request, and the audience subsided again with gratitude. By Wednesday afternoon every appointment had been kept and every report filed with the Mercury crew. Federationists packed bags, checked out, and headed for vans, trains, and airplanes. The 1992 Washington Seminar was history, but the National Federation of the Blind will be back next year. Our work is never finished. The task of educating the public about blindness is unending. There are always new people to deal with and old acquaintances who have more to learn. An excellent illustration of this exhausting truth occurred on the Friday when people were first arriving. We have used the Holiday Inn Capitol as our headquarters for almost ten years, and one would hope that the staff had learned something about treating blind hotel guests like others. But that morning hotel maids began collecting the free-standing lamps from the rooms of NFB guests. When Sharon Gold, President of the National Federation of the Blind of California, asked why they were doing so, one of the staff explained that the blind people wouldn't need the light and they might knock over the lamps and break valuable property. Sheryl Pickering, Sharon's roommate for the seminar and manager of the NFB of California office, protested that she would need the lamp to work at her computer, so the maids retreated empty-handed. But Sharon explained the hotel's reasoning to another Californian, Paul McIntire, who immediately went to the front desk and demanded a ten-percent discount on his room on the grounds that he didn't have as much light as other hotel guests. There was a quick conference of hotel personnel, and the missing lamps were returned. No, our work has not ended, not with the 102nd Congress and not with the Holiday Inn Capitol staff. We will return next year, and in the meantime we will remain in contact with our Senators and Members of Congress to insure that they remember the National Federation of the Blind and the issues we tell them are important to the nation's blind citizens. [PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Jon Deden.] TRIBUTE TO A FEDERATIONIST by Jon Deden From the Associate Editor: Every day Federationists go out of their way to help other blind people who need their support or expertise. They do it because they are dedicated to making life better for all blind people and because the National Federation of the Blind has supported and assisted them. For the most part we don't think twice about this loving service. It isn't that we take it for granted, but it is like the air we breathe--always there when we need it. Recently Dr. Jernigan received a letter from Jon Deden, an active member of the National Federation of the Blind of Denver. In a few lines Mr. Deden captures the spirit of Federationism as he experienced it when he was in need. As you will see, Curtis Chong was able and happy to help Jon Deden, but what makes this anecdote truly worth noting is the fact that, though Curtis Chong is as good a Federationist as we have, he is not extraordinary. That is the true strength of the National Federation of the Blind. Here is Jon Deden's letter: November 22, 1991 Dear Mr. Jernigan: I am proud to be a member of the National Federation of the Blind and to be affiliated with all of the wonderful people in the organization. I can think of no one finer in the NFB than Curtis Chong, President of the NFB in Computer Science. Curtis has been of more help to me in the computer field than anyone could ever imagine. When I first started working at the Colorado Student Loan Program, I had no idea what type of computer equipment to get or how to install it. I called Diane McGeorge and asked if she could recommend anyone to help me. Immediately she said, "I know of a great person--Curtis Chong." Diane gave me Curtis's work number, but I was a little hesitant to call him there for help because he didn't know me, and I hate to bother people at work anyway. When I called Curtis, what I encountered was one of the nicest people I had ever talked to--more than willing at any time to go out of his way to help me. To say I was impressed with Curtis would be an understatement. He was instrumental in helping me choose the correct equipment for my job, and without his assistance I don't think the equipment would ever have been properly installed. The computer people at the Colorado Student Loan Program worked for two days trying to get the equipment installed--to no avail. When I finally did what I should have done in the first place, called Curtis, within five minutes my system was up and running! I recently started a new job as a Securities Examiner. Once again Curtis was invaluable--helping me not only to get my system to wo