§1474 Technology development, demonstration, and utilization; media services; and instructional materials

Summary

The Secretary must give grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements to eligible groups to support technology and classroom media for students with disabilities. Money can fund research and demonstrations of new and universally designed tech, help move tech from research into schools, teach parents and teachers about early diagnosis and intervention for reading disabilities, and support internet tools for students with cognitive disabilities. It also supports classroom-ready educational media and making TV, videos, and other multimedia accessible with video description or captions (captioning for news only through September 30, 2006). Accessible media can be shared by loan services, and free accessible textbooks and other materials must be provided for visually impaired and print-disabled students in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools. Descriptions or captions are paid for only if the producer did not already provide them or other sources did not fully fund them. Any group that wants money must apply. Groups that apply to make and give out accessible digital audio textbooks must be a national nonprofit with a proven track record, be able to produce and deliver up-to-date digital textbooks quickly, and must show they can significantly stretch federal funds with other money and volunteers. The law requires the American Printing House for the Blind to set up the National Instructional Materials Access Center within one year after December 3, 2004. That center must keep a catalog of materials in the Secretary’s accessibility file standard, give accessible materials free to eligible blind or print-disabled students, and adopt procedures to avoid copyright problems. Eligible entity: see section 1461(b). Definitions include blind/print-disabled children, the accessibility file standard, print instructional materials (K–12 textbooks and core materials), and specialized formats (as in Title 17). Subsection (e) applies only to materials published after the final rule setting the file standard, and no private lawsuit can be brought against the Secretary or the center for failures to provide materials. Subsections (a)–(d) do not apply to subsection (e).