U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is out front in a recent bipartisan request seeking more than $30 million in funding for the federal Bookshare program, which offers students with disabilities free access to adaptive books.
“Your support for this program is vital to ensuring students with visual and print disabilities have access to educational materials that enable learning and academic growth,” the senators wrote in an April 13 letter to U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA), who are working on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2019.
Sen. Cassidy, along with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who both serve on the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led 10 U.S. Senate Democratic colleagues in also asking the Senate appropriators to include language in the upcoming budget proposal that would expand Bookshare to more K-12 students in underserved areas of the United States.
“Bookshare is widely used in districts and homes across the country,” wrote the senators. “With current funding from the Department of Education, Bookshare plans to expand the number of students served to 725,000 and grow the number of books offered to 800,000 by 2022. Funding from the Educational Technology, Media, and Materials program, provided by this committee, is integral to reaching that goal.”
Bookshare has an extensive library of adaptive books, which according to the Special Education Service Agency are those that have been modified in some way to make them more accessible to a student who has difficulty with typical books.
The senators noted in their letter that Bookshare’s specifically designed technology promotes better learning outcomes in students with visual and print disabilities by offering texts online in audio, large print, and braille formats, for example.
“Prior to 2006, just 5 percent of print materials worldwide were available to students with print disabilities,” according to their letter. “Today, Bookshare’s library has over 600,000 books and adds an additional 68,000 books a month. Bookshare was also able to achieve this dramatic growth at 1/15 the cost of other methods.”
The senators have requested Senate appropriators provide $30.047 million in funding for the program, which they wrote is utilized currently in 25,000 local school districts, including 99 of the nation’s largest 100 school districts.