Transcripts For CSPAN2 Forum Focuses On Opportunities For Pe

We are literally the largest Minority Group in america and one in every five people in our nation have a disability. The majority of people have a loved one with a disability is 12 and we are the only Minority Group that anyone can join at any time due to accident, illness or aging. Respectfully is very proud to be a member of the ccd, a group of more than 110 National Disability organizations who want a Better Future for people with disabilities. As we have seen recently, overall the Disability Community is quite good at protecting key lifesaving benefits and advancing civil rights. So many great organizations already out there and so many fantastic leaders already in the Disability Movement already, why was there a need to get another disability organization. And what specifically is respectability trying to achieve . Respectability fundamentally is about the opportunity agenda. We know that people with disabilities and the people who love them wants opportunities for education, skills, jobs, independence and a Better Future just like anyone else. We want to win win Bipartisan Solutions for people with disabilities and their loved ones, employers and taxpayers alike. Respectability is a nothing about us without our organization and we serve people with every kind of disability. I myself am dyslexic and i also know what it means to raise a talented and wonderful child with multiple disabilities. Members of our team had a wide variety of disabilities and or disability experience. Respectability has High Expectations and knows that every person, every person with a disability whether their disability is physical, developmental, mental health, social, sensory or otherwise, all have something great inside that they can contribute to this world. People with disabilities come from every race, age, ideology, sexual orientation, gender identity, region of the country and more. We all are better off and we work to reach our shared goals and dreams of a more welcoming, respectable and inclusive world. Over these years the ada and other key policies have key physical architecture and educational opportunities. However, unfortunately, Deployment Opportunities for people with disabilities also known as pwbs are short. I have not significantly improved in decades. And the negative attitudes about people with disabilities remains. We stand and in some cases role at an important moment in history. And in some states, only one in for working age people with a disability has a job. Any job. Indeed, in the cases, there may be a parttime job and moreover, in some cities it is still legal to pay people with disabilities some minimum wage. The good news is however that in other states, the outcome is twice as good. Showing that when there are High Expectations and best practices are used, wow. Its possible. Studies show that most working age people with disabilities what job. In order for this to happen we need to close the skills gap, fight stigmas and help employers understand the Business Case, not a charity case. The Business Case for inclusion. Today, only 65 percent of students with disabilities graduate high school. And only seven percent of students who are born with disabilities graduate college. Schools need to do a lot better by children with disabilities but a lot is also up to families and the natural support for children. This can mean faithbased organizations such as purchase and synagogues and mosques. It can be nonprofit, mentors and more but to me there is no greater joy than being a parent but lets face it, being a parent of a typically developing child is already challenging. Doing the right thing for a child with disabilities which in my case is the greatest pleasure in the world can also be challenging as well. This is especially true for single parents, new immigrants and people who are otherwise marginalized. We know that children with disabilities are especially at risk for the schools of prison pipeline when educational opportunities, early intervention, then doors and High Expectations are not in place. Indeed, more than 750,000 people with disabilities are behind bars in our nation today and half , half of all women who are incarcerated today in america have disabilities. This has a tremendous financial cost to our nation. We need to prepare young people with disabilities to excel in science, technology, junior, mathematics and other careers as well as in guarding their own money. Today we will get to hear from several amazing people who are twice exceptional. Remember that word, twice exceptional. They have a disability and they have exceptional talents. Each of them makes me think about malcolm gladwell, both david and goliath which extols the strength of people with disabilities. Because traditional ways of doing things dont always work for people with disabilities, gladwell demonstrates that people with diverse talents can find incredible ways to benefit and to succeed. In fact, some of the greatest companies on earth were started and are led by people with disabilities. Innovators Richard Branson and Charles Schwab like myself, governor looper and brian are dyslexic. Of ernst and young was both deaf and fully impaired. Likewise steve wynn was blind. Billionaire sheldon abelson, scientist even hawking, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard bernstein, punishment jim landrigan, claudia gordon. Senator any duckworth, judy human, john mccain and ada champion abdul and connie the one armed golfer who will meet shortly. All have physical disabilities and exceptional abilities. Additionally, some of the most creative people including whoopi goldberg, michael j fox, marlena, mark numbers who you will also meet today and others have disabilities. Still, starting your own company in hollywood art for everyone. We need a wide range of choices. People with disabilities bring unique characteristics to the workplaces that benefit employers and organizations. Amazon, atv, bank of america, tarbox, walgreens, walmart and others all have shown that employers with disabilities are loyal and help them make more money. Students with Developmental Disabilities who are not rebound but who can legally stay in school until they are21 years old , we should enable them to have freedom of choice and to let them choose whether they want to spendtheir last year of school in the classroom or in a realworld apprenticeship. In programs such as project search. Project search is already serving was to 3000 young people with disabilities each year and they are getting close to a 70 percent job success rate and competitive integrated employment for youth whose disabilities are significant. Project search is thriving under republican Governor Scott walker and john kasich and democratic governors tom wolfe and jay ensley alike. This is a bipartisan issue. These apprenticeships enable Young Workers to have the dignity and income of the job while they are doing a great deal for the bottom line of Customer Service driven employers in hospitals, hotels and elder care. Again, people with disabilities want to be independent. Still, the same time, some still need to have port. And you need to have a system that enables there to be vital support such as medicaid and personal care assistance, even for individuals who have jobs who do not need a government stipend to live independently. But they should be able to live independently and work at American Public policy should recognize that in our healthcare and sports system that the dignity and income in the job is so important. But all too often schools and employers deny young people with disabilities the opportunities they want because they cant imagine that they can be successful. They cant even imagine that people with disabilities can be successful. Why is that . Because there is a fundamental link between fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities. Indeed, i just did a lot of name dropping of successful peoples and companies with disabilities because Research Shows that people can imagine that people with disabilities can be successful unless they see it with their own eyes. We dont want people to think that my speech is fake news. Feel free to google all the names and companies and organizations that i mentioned. Its the real deal. Time for people with disabilities to be seen on the large and small screen and Society Overall for what they can do and not for what they cannot as actress gina davis says, if we see it, you can be. If you see it, you can be it in the past the portrayal of people with disabilities use the pity principle. It started with the framing of the jerry lewis telethon. Five decades of the hand up, needing a hand out instead of a hand up. Additionally a big part of the challenge today as we will learn more about later today is that we rarely see characters, let alone positive or diverse characters with actual disabilities on either the small or large screen. But this weekend i watched duty and the beast with our fabulous children. It has hundreds of characters on screen. There was almost every kind of diversity in this new beauty and the beast. Accept disability. Sadly, this is typical. According to glad only two percent of scripted characters on tv are people with disabilities, even though 10 times as many people percentagewise exist with disabilities in our country. Moreover when there are characters with disabilities, all too often they are portrayed by actors without disabilities who are devoid of authenticity or honest representation of the character they are playing. What are the results of continuing the images and eraser . The results are negative attitudes, stereotypes and stigmas that impact millions of children with disabilities and the approximately 300,000 young people with disabilities who age into what should be the workforce each year and let me just remind you that in our nation today only one out of every three working age people with a disability as a job, only one out of three. With disabilities are the poorest of the poor in america despite the fact that we have talents and we have energy to bring to the strength of this nation. But in order for more people to be in the workforce, we need more talented people with disabilities working in front of and behind the camera. We need to change the narrative of how people see people with disabilities so employers and everyone else can see the abilities that people have and how it makes for a better bottom line. X its amazing that such a small change and have such a big impact. Weve seen this in the popular reaction to the medic and the winning tv show born this way. Never before has the Reality Program genuinely showed the lives and love of talented, diverse and passionate young people with Developmental Disabilities like this. Its fantastic and we are so proud that this emmywinning show was created by our board member, jonathan murray. Its starting to change the direction in hollywood. We are also thrilled with the success of abctvs speechless which stars michael fowler. Who actually have a disability and has an accurate portrayal of what it takes to successfully raise a child with disability. We often look forward to several no new shows artemis fall. We want to see stories in hollywood about what people with disabilities and do. Think about it. Beautiful music from a deaf man. It happened. Ludvig von beethoven. Freedom from somebody with a seizure disorder . It happened. Harriet come in. Music and civilrights leadership from someone with learning disabilities, its happening. Harry belafonte. Recognize the disability, imagine the possibility, respect the ability. Respectability is currently celebrating our fourth birthday. We just expanded our board, elected great new leaders and what people like you whether you are here today in person or you are watching on cspan2 to join our efforts. I invite you to check us out online respectability got bored and join us on facebook and twitter. Are currently looking for more Young Leaders to join our National Leadership program for talented and diverse leaders who want to spite stigmas and advanced opportunities or people with disabilities. Theres so many ways that you can get involved in our work. In fact, along with local leaders were creating a demonstration project in long beach california. Ill be out there soon along with much of our team will be there the week of august 14th. We need your support, your involvement and your voice. We also want to thank the office of congressman brad sherman and him personally for making this event possible and lauren albom and the full team at respectability or putting this program together but i really especially also want to thank mark summers, dana butler, tommy dorsey along with our board member even king zyngas who traveled from out of town to join us today. We cant wait to hear from you and everyone else. Before we kick off with our first vip teacher, speaker, only cantos, i invite our Board Members and our staff to please rise if you can raise your hand if you cant rise to that people can see who you are. Donna and ronald, and vivian from our board of directors and other leaders from our team and our fellows, i hope that they they will meet members of our team and our board. I really say thank you for your service and really, thank you for what you are doing and especially to these amazing Board Members to give so muchof their heart and their time. This is a team thing. Respectability is a movement and we are newand we want new people to join us. Those of you are here in person or watching on cspan2, i want to before i introduce our first year just leave us with two words from the founder of the disability rights movement, justin dark and that is, lead on. Thank you. [applause] now i want to invite campos to come to the front. Orley campos as he coming to the front im going to talk introducing him. He is a superstar. He is a personal friend and mentor to me. Blind since birth and active on civil rights issues for more than 27 years. Only cantos and im over here. Wesley serves. Thank you. Only cantos presently serves as special assistant to the acting secretary for civil rights at the Us Department of education. Former positions include staff attorney and director of outreach and education at the Disability Rights Legal Center in los angeles. General counsel and Director Program at the American Association of people with disabilities, special assistant and Later Special counsel at the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Us Department of justice. Vice chairman of the President Committee for people with intellectual disabilities and associate director for domestic policy under president george w bush. I will also say that in addition to his phenomenal professional accomplishments, that makes half of our National Leadership fellows want to grow up to be ali when they grow up, ali is off so also an adopted dad. Blind triplet boys, wheel, and stephen. Each of whom just graduated high school. And each of whom was just elevated this past week to the rank of eagle scout, the highest Level Achievement within the boy scouts of america. Only campos, we are delighted to have you here today. Good morning everyone. I am so pleased to be with all of you here today. And considering that this is the first time for me to addressyou from a podium setting, in a number of years ive got , i have really missed you. And it is really good to be back and it is a privilege to be here before you today. And my personal thanks to jennifer for her leadership and her ongoing vision in building respectability as a cuttingedge organization that is dedicated to promoting equality of opportunity for persons with all types of disabilities. I stand before you today as special assistant to the acting assistant attorney general, asked acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Us Department of education. And over the past several years, over the past 20, 70 years of work in serving the Disability Community, i cannot help but think back about all the many ways that life has improved for us since the signing of the landmark americans with disabilities act 27 years ago. When we think back on our lives then, as members of the Disability Community, we remember when things were different then. And in looking at all that has taken place sense, we also see in many ways how far we have come. That are more Employment Opportunities, more persons with disabilities today. State and local Government Programs and services are more accessible. Laces of public accommodation are more available and accessible to us and transportation and telecommunications have been areas that have also witnessed significant improvements. And yet, here we are. Looking at the number of barriers that still remain to our full participation as persons with disabilities. There still remains prevailing myths and misconceptions about persons with physical, psychiatric , intellectual and learning disabilities. And for all of us who have disabilities, we work day to eliminate old stigmas, still prevail. There are individuals who wonder about the extent to which we may be successful in the classroom, in the workplace, has Business