White House/VA Conference
|
 |
“About 6.9 million young people receive special education and related services in this country every year.” — Troy R. Justesen, Ed.D |
Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I bring greetings from Secretary Rod Paige at the Department of Education. He wishes to extend to you his apologies. He’s on travel as well. He asked that I come here and bring his greetings, and share with you some of the achievements of the Department of Education (DOE) with respect to the New Freedom Initiative (NFI). Before I do that, in thanking my colleagues here at the front of the room today, I would be remiss and probably punished tonight when I get home if I didn’t introduce my brother, who is the Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House and the New Freedom Initiative adviser to the President, Tracy Justesen, in the back there. In a quirk of fate, Tracy has the job I had before coming to the Department of Education. So, I think the President wanted to see the same face in the Domestic Policy Council. But he doesn’t, because I’m the better-looking of the two. The New Freedom Initiative, ladies and gentlemen, is basically broken into four main components: Increasing access to assistive and universally designed technology, increasing access to educational opportunities, increasing access to the workforce, and increasing access to community living. |
 At the time of this speech, Dr. Troy R. Justesen was delegated the functions of the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) at the U.S. Department of Education. He is also the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary at OSERS. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Executive Director of the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education, and worked as a policy analyst in the Director’s Office of the Office of Special Education Programs. In the mid-1990’s, Troy served more than three years at the U.S. Department of Justice working on enforcement issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. He also worked at the Utah State University-University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service on issues involving children and youth with disabilities, including assistive technology, personnel preparation, and special education. He holds a B.S. in Education and an M.S. in Special Education, each from Utah State University, and a doctorate in Education from Vanderbilt University. |
The Department of Education has responsibilities for all four of these components. Most aptly, and it’s my privilege to be the first to announce it here, the House and the Senate last week passed the Assistive Technology Act of 2004, which will be before the President for his signature. The Assistive Technology Act is one in which the Department of Education has taken the lead since its original creation in 1988. Both The National Institute for Rehabilitation Research and the Rehabilitation Services Administration will be assuming the lead in implementing assistive technology for individuals with disabilities across their lifespans. The Assistive Technology Act gives us unprecedented opportunities to build new foundations in assistive technology where the act has not gone before. We have the chance to work with our colleagues across the administration in a variety of federal agencies to promote assistive and universally designed technologies for people with disabilities. Principally, we’ve done a great deal of work with Phil Bond and Ben Wu from the Department of Commerce. And we look forward at the Department of Education to building that strong alliance and making sure that the R&D efforts in assistive technology move those products to the hands of people with disabilities. The New Freedom Initiative fosters educational and workforce opportunities for people with disabilities. We at the Department of Education, under the President’s leadership, have seen an increase of more than 75 percent in special education and rehabilitation services for people with disabilities since the President took office in 2001. Seventy-five percent of this increase also represents an opportunity for young people with disabilities, as they move from educational experiences to adulthood, to realize the successes and the vision of Secretary Mineta’s efforts on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the President’s efforts on building on the ADA for the New Freedom Initiative. This is a wonderful, historic reflection of our investments in special education-related services. Our opportunities in building community living and accessible environments for all people with disabilities are also a fundamental component of our work at the Department of Education. But we realize that we should not be working on the NFI’s four tenets alone. We look forward to continuing our work with all federal agencies, with consumers in the field, with researchers and practitioners, making sure our efforts—the multibillion dollar efforts we have in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services—reflect what consumers with disabilities need and what they want. Our achievements in building on No Child Left Behind and the soon-to-be reauthorized, hopefully, Special Education Statute for Children and Youth with Disabilities, are our opportunity to work with our partners, to work with you, to work with researchers, advocates, and the individuals with disabilities, making certain that the New Freedom Initiative is a reality and not just a concept. Along those lines, this President has signed what I can count to be more than five executive orders implementing various provisions of opportunities for people with disabilities under the New Freedom Initiative. This historic achievement, reflects his personal attention to the needs of increasing opportunities for all people with disabilities. Today, we have an estimated 54 million Americans with disabilities. These numbers continue to grow. We look forward to building on the adequate needs and services that we provide at the Department of Education for people with disabilities throughout their lives. We have 6.9 million young people who receive special education and related services in this country every year. We are furthering the great successes we have made in educating all children, including children with disabilities, but also ensuring that as these young people grow up and move into adulthood, the workforce, and into independent community living, they do so as fully and equally as they possibly can, together with their peers and colleagues without disabilities. Secretary Paige joins his colleagues, Secretaries Principi and Mineta, in bringing you his congratulations on the achievements you have made to improve the lives of people with disabilities. As a person who sits here and uses assistive technology, my personal thanks to each of you in the room for increasing the opportunities, removing the barriers, and making the New Freedom Initiative a reality for my colleagues and brothers and sisters with disabilities in this great country. Thank you very much. |
|
| Main Page | > | Welcome Page | > | Dr. Justesen's Address |