Today blind people face an unemployment rate of over 70 percent nationally. Blind people in Pennsylvania have long suffered under a sluggish, bureaucratic rehabilitation program, making a bleak national situation even worse for blind people in the Commonwealth.
This is why blind people cheered when Christine Boone was named director of the Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services. Blind consumers knew that she would bring to the job an impressive resume of professional accomplishments and the credibility of being a blind person herself, one who has faced the same challenges as the clients the Bureau is charged with serving.
During her time as director of the Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services, Christine Boone has moved the agency in a progressive direction, building credibility and strong relationships with the blind of the state. In the three years she has served as director, she dramatically increased the number of blind people who secured employment annually, established strong ties with the blind community, and created an environment of trust. She developed innovative staff training techniques for Bureau employees, raised staff morale, and fostered a commitment to the job of helping the blind of Pennsylvania in their search for good jobs. Her record speaks for itself-her firing had nothing to do with her ability as a manager!
Steve Nasuti, executive director of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, was threatened by her effectiveness; threatened by the unprecedented support she enjoyed from staff, blind consumers, and the community at large; and threatened by having a blind member of his executive team know more, do more, and have more respect than he did. He suggested that Ms. Boone was too close to her constituents to be objective. Blind Pennsylvanians Rally for Christine Boone
Why? Because she is blind! This is simple discrimination. It is analogous to the suggestion that a previously battered woman would be unsuited for the position of director of a battered woman's shelter.
The blind of Pennsylvania call on the governor and the legislature to reorganize blindness services to ensure that such an unwarranted attack never happens again. The blind of the state want blindness services moved out from under the Department of Labor and Industry; out from under the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation; out from under the bureaucracy; out from under the paternalistic, unimaginative, heavy-handed control of bureaucrats who think "good enough" is good enough for the blind. The blind of the state want services moved into a separate commission for the blind run by a board appointed by the governor with the consent of the Senate, made up of blind people and others who understand how best to prepare blind people for good jobs in their communities.
According to data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, throughout the history of job training for the blind, states with separate commissions for the blind outperform states which bury programs for the blind in large umbrella agencies. (See the attached article by then-Commissioner Fredric K. Schroeder, Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education, reprinted from the August-September 1999 Braille Monitor.)
The effectiveness of separate commissions for the blind as job preparedness agencies is not hard to understand. Separate commissions for the blind have a single focus. They have experience and expertise and know the most effective ways of preparing blind people for high-quality employment. They are responsive to the client community they are charged to serve, and, most important, they cannot sidestep the issue of accountability by hiding within the larger bureaucracy in which blindness services are only a small part of the agency's mission.
Blind Pennsylvanians Rally for Christine Boone
An example of just such an agency's false economy is the decision, proposed by Mr. Nasuti, to cut tuition support for blind college students. This policy change will reduce college tuition support by more than half. Yet the completion of a post-secondary degree is well documented to be the most effective way to prepare blind people to obtain high-quality, permanent employment.
No! Separate programs for the blind save money in spite of what state bureaucrats may say. They save money because they develop expertise and knowledge about how best to invest available funds. Other programs waste tax money by poorly preparing blind people for jobs. The end result is rapid and repeated loss of employment, causing the blind person to return to dependence on tax-supported disability insurance and to undertake frequent, ineffectual retraining.
One of the issues leading to Christine Boone's dismissal was a complaint by Steve Nasuti that the Bureau was taking too long to prepare blind people for employment. He believes that a newly blind person should be able to be placed in a job with only three or four weeks of instruction in use of the white cane. This demonstrates his total lack of understanding of the needs of blind people and his callousness toward the challenges blind people face in seeking to reenter the workforce.