Story summaries and links to full-length articles delivered to your desktop, news reader, or added to your blog or Web site.
 |
Education Is Destiny |
Educational Access and Opportunity
on July 8, 2009
Accessibility! It’s a good word.
When we say accessibility in education, we mean a lot more than fair and equal access on a Web site or school facilities that accommodate students with special needs. The word, as defined on Wikipedia, is a term used to describe the degree to which a product (e.g., device, service, environment) is accessible to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" the functionality, and possible benefit, of some system or entity.
So, when we consider the goals and aims of public education — or even the goals and aims of society at large — accessibility is a cornerstone idea, and one I think is at the core of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
ARRA is about creating access and opportunity. Consider this: The ARRA logo includes the Web address recovery.gov. That’s a first! The logo will be used to designate projects funded by the stimulus plan. Details about each stimulus project will be online. It’s a long way from how the Work Projects Administration shared its good work. It’s vital that education policy addresses all that accessibility means. Our culture and society are changing at a rapid and exciting pace, and education’s roles and definitions are changing along with them.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.convergemag.com/blog/education/Educational-Access-Opportunity.html
