HARKIN URGES REVERSAL OF CAPTIONING DECISION DISALLOWING FUNDING FOR CERTAIN PROGRAMING
April 2004

WASHINGTON- Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), today wrote to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Rod Paige urging the immediate reversal of the Department's decision to disallow funding for captioning of nearly 200 television programs. Harkin and Kennedy urged Secretary Paige to direct the engagement of a fair, consumer-directed process to decide how to best allocate these vital funds.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires the Department of Education to distribute funding for the captioning of "educational, news and informational" programs. In years prior, the Department distributed federal funding to captioning agencies and required that these agencies create Consumer Advisory Boards to assist in selecting what qualifies as "educational, news and informational." That process, however, has recently been superseded by a list of disapproved programs which was compiled by the Department without consumer input. Many important entertainment news and sports news programs have been disapproved.

"Without access to these news programs, deaf and hard of hearing students will be unable to participate in many conversations with their peers and unable to understand references to sports and popular culture, which are often used by teachers to make concepts relevant to youth. The disapproval of news shows and other programs also prevents deaf parents from reviewing these programs for their children - depriving them of many valuable learning opportunities," the letter said.

Harkin also expressed concern with the Department of Education's claims that it instructed an external panel of experts with guidelines regarding which programming met their criteria. Harkin wrote, "One of these experts has reported to Congress he was not told he was serving on a government panel, did not meet other panel members, was not informed of the purpose for his input and comments and was not given any definitions, written instructions, or examples to guide his decisions."

Harkin, whose brother Frank was deaf, authored the ADA in the Senate and has led efforts to increase access to captioned television programming for individuals with disabilities.

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