What is the RSA?

The RSA is the Rehabilitation Services Administration.  It provides state agencies with money, technical assistance and oversight in their efforts to provide rehabilitative and vocational services for individuals who are blind, deaf, paralyzed or intellectually disabled.  RSA programs currently serve about 1.2 million people at an annual cost of approximately 2.9 billion. These programs are considered to be the foundation upon which quality services for the disabled are built and the bedrock of the most important program in history for people with disabilities.

In What Way is the RSA Threatened?

The Department of Education, which has jurisdiction over RSA, would like to allow state entities to combine RSA programs with other state programs that serve both disabled and the non-disabled.  This would severely undermine the services provided to disabled individuals.  This is because the consolidated program would be unable to provide the range of services to the disabled the RSA currently offers.  According to Doctor Fredric K. Schroeder, who served as Commissioner of RSA from 1994 through the end of the Clinton administration, the current proposal is unworkable because “the way you rehabilitate a person with a severe disability is very different than the way you help a dislocated worker return to the workforce.”  The truth is simple: consolidated services inevitably short change the disabled by forcing them into a system without any understanding of their special needs.

The Department of Education's Proposal Would:

Specifically the Department of Education proposal would do the following:

• Reduce the RSA staff by 50% through the closing of regional offices, offices that provide the support and oversight needed to run RSA programs.
• Eliminate 65 positions in the RSA, 43% of which are filled by people with disabilities.
• Promote WIA (Work Investment Act) super waiver authority allowing state governors to consolidate programs into “one stop” centers, many of which are not programmatically or physically accessible, lacking as they do the expertise to provide the comprehensive and specialized services needed by people with disabilities.
• Downgrade the position of Commissioner of the RSA, which is currently appointed by the President and confirmed by the US Senate to that of Director.
• Implement all of the above without legislation, impact studies or significant input from the disabled community.

Who is Joanne Wilson and Why Did She Resign as Commissioner of the RSA?

Joanne Wilson became blind as a child and was even illiterate for much of her childhood, until she became the beneficiary of a job placement program designed especially for the disabled.  Wilson entered a special program in Iowa at the age of 19 and eventually became a public school teacher before running the Louisiana Center for the Blind and then the RSA.  She is currently works for the NFB in Baltimore.  She is just the kind of person to serve as an example for disabled people all over the country.  And yet Ms. Wilson resigned her commission because she had the courage to lose a prestigious position rather than preside over the gutting of an organization that has helped so many people like her.  We at I-Witness applaud this selfless action on her part!

What Can I Do to Help the RSA?

You can email the Secretary Of Education Margaret Spellings at Margaret.spellings@ed.gov or her secretary and let them know that you feel that the proposed changes at RSA will not be beneficial to the disabled community.  Tell them you are angry and will not stand by and watch as unkind and dangerous decisions regarding the disabled are thoughtlessly and arrogantly made by the current administration, administration more concerned with projecting world power across the globe than empowering its own citizens!  You can also write, email or call your senators and representatives in Washington. The important thing is that you do what you can to protect what the disabled community worked so hard to achieve!