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The Supreme Court decided that schools were required only to provide enough help for children with disabilities to pass from grade to grade. The Court reversed the lower courts' rulings, which had granted Amy an interpreter, setting a precedent that could affect the quality of education for all individuals with disabilities.
From the time Amy entered kindergarten in Peekskill, New York, her parents battled with school officials to get a sign language interpreter in the classroom. Nancy and Clifford Rowley, also deaf, struggled with officials for their own right to a communications process in which they could fully participate. Stuck in limbo was a bright, inquisitive child, forced to rely on partial lipreading of rapid classroom instruction and interaction, and sound amplifiers that were often broken and always cumbersome.
R.C. Smith chronicles the Rowley family's dealings with school boards, lawyers, teachers, expert consultants, advocates, and supporters, and their staunch determination to get through the exhaustive process of presenting the case time after time to school adjudicative bodies and finally the federal courts. The author also documents his own "coming to awareness" about how the "able" see the "disabled."
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2004-11-232000-07-20Smith takes a reader on a time odyssey (1976-1982) to witness a struggle of the Deaf parents of a Deaf daughter, Amy Rowley, and a hearing son endured through the maze of an education and court systems in their quest towards an equal opportunity for Amy enrolled in a public school.
His book, which took Smith about 12 years of researching and interviewing, illustrates how the systems of power could be shifted into their favor by manipulating the interpretation of loosely worded in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. And later in Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (PL 94-142), which was renamed Individual with Disabilities Act (IDEA). Instead of accepting the lower court's order to provide Amy Rowley a sign language interpreter, the school board appealed and argued over the definition of "equal opportunity" versus "full potential" or "appropriate education" that went all the way to Supreme Court.
Along that time odyssey Smith introduced the family's lawyer, Michael Chatoff, who turned deaf in his 20s and how he overcame unjust discrimination against him as he was striving to become the lawyer he was and argued the case for Rowleys at Supreme Court. Smith is successful in presenting an objective insight of the politics, controversial issues, and everyone revolving around and inside the community of Deaf citizens.
A reader may be stunned to learn that the judges of Supreme Court did not scrutinize the Act that was passed in Congress, and they decided that since her achievement tests scores proved that even without a sign language interpreter Amy was getting an appropriate education. As a result, the definition of "appropriate education" or "full potential" won over "equal opportunity." This decision was also cost effective for a public school to avert providing a sign language interpreter for Amy.
Hence, from that time odyssey, a reader questions the true intention of society at large in educating bright deaf children like Amy. Does the school board ever encourage deaf children to accomplish beyond the standard academic achievement expected of average hearing children?
