Diana Pastora Carson:
Welcome to the Beyond Awareness: Disability Awareness That Matters podcast. Here, you will find a safe space to learn and grow with leaders in education, Disability Studies, disability advocacy, and diversity, equity and inclusion conversations. Specifically, we look at how disability fits into diversity, equity and inclusion, and how to frame disability awareness. In the context of educating K through 12 communities, this podcast serves educators, parents, and community members who strive to learn and or teach about disability in a research-based and respectful way. Moving beyond simple awareness and diving into inclusive and socially responsive conversations. Thank you for joining us today. Now let's go Beyond Awareness.
Diana Pastora Carson:
I'm so excited to have the honor of our guest on today's Beyond Awareness podcast. Andy Imparato is the Executive Director of Disability Rights California, and has a vast and diverse history of work and advocacy related to disability. Andy, welcome to the show.
Andy Imparato:
Thank you, Diana. It's great to be here.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thanks. So can you please share a bit about your journey in the field of disability advocacy, both personally and professionally?
Andy Imparato:
Sure. So I went to law school straight out of college and I ended up having my first serious episode of depression during my last semester of law school. That was in 1990. So it was about 32 years ago. And I graduated law school in May. The Americans with Disabilities Act passed in July of that year, so it was good timing for me. And I ended up devoting my career to disability rights. I'm trained as a lawyer, but I think of myself kind of as a policy wonk. What I really like doing is influencing policy and building networks and cultivating leaders who can influence policy. So I came to Disability Rights California after 26 years in DC, because I was intrigued by the scale of the organization. It's a 41 million dollar organization. I know, Diana, you served on the board and it's grown even since you were on the board, it keeps growing. We have over a hundred attorneys. So to me, this is like an aircraft carrier and I just have to be careful not to push the wrong button.
Diana Pastora Carson:
That's wonderful. Well, I'm sure you're not pushing the wrong buttons. I appreciate all the work that you've done. And you are highly esteemed in your field by many, and we're...
Andy Imparato:
Well, the same is true of you, Diana.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you. All right. So can you share with our audience what the differences are between disability rights to education via existing laws compared to policies and practices that we sometimes see in our education system?
Andy Imparato:
Well, you know, one way to think about this is a law is an effort to express what a policy should be on the ground, but the law does not enforce itself. So in 1975, there were about a million children in the United States who were getting no education at all. And there were some Supreme Court decisions that said, that's not okay. And Congress decided to pass a law called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that basically said, if you're a public school, you have to educate all the children in your area; and they all have a right to a free, appropriate public education; and this is what that means. And it was, you know, in some ways, it was common sense. Why wouldn't you educate all the kids in your community? But in some ways it was transformational because, up until that point in time, schools got away with saying, oh, that kid is too disabled.
Andy Imparato:
We don't know what to do with your kid. So we're not gonna educate your kid. And you know, the law is complex. It doesn't implement itself. When I worked at the National Council on Disability, we did a study of federal enforcement of all the civil rights laws that protect people with disabilities. And I think of IDEA, in part, as a civil rights law. It articulates the civil rights that children with disabilities should receive in a classroom setting along with the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. So, you know, the big lesson to me, we looked at the Department of Education's own monitoring data. And the Department of Education was clear that every state in the country was out of compliance with core civil rights protections under IDEA. And they basically didn't do anything about it. They kept, everybody kept getting their funding even though they weren't complying with the law.
Andy Imparato:
So my big takeaway from all of the civil rights enforcement studies that we did, because we looked at the ADA, we looked at the Fair Housing Act. We looked at all kinds of laws, is that civil rights laws do not enforce themselves. And the government is not big enough to enforce the law at every place where there's a violation. So if you really want these laws to get implemented, you need a well-educated protected class. The people who enforce the civil rights of children with disabilities are parents. And if the parent or whoever the caretakers are for the child, but if parent is not well educated in what their kids rights are or their, you know, the person they're taking care of's rights are in a classroom, then there's a good chance that those rights are not going to happen in the classroom.
Andy Imparato:
And I wish that wasn't true, but that was my big takeaway. So I, my lesson from, for Disability Rights California, and for all of us who care about educational equity and civil rights in the classroom, is we need to spend a lot of money to educate the protected class in multiple languages. And we need to do it repeatedly. And we need to support them to be effective civil rights enforcement agents in the classrooms. There's a concept in the law called a private attorney general. I don't know if you've heard of that, but it's basically like a person who enforces the law as an individual who knows the law, and as an agent of the state, saying on behalf of the state, you need to do this. In some ways, every parent can be a private attorney general for IDEA and go into a classroom and say, what you're doing is not complying with my child's rights and you have to change. And if you don't, I'm gonna complain to the Office of Civil Rights or wherever. But that's part of being well-educated as a parent, is knowing where to go if you don't get what you need from the teacher or the school administrator.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. That's really valuable information, especially for parents. As a teacher, I'm wondering, you know, I know a lot of really well-intentioned, well-meaning teachers and administrators. But I'm wondering what's missing. What, why are, why are there these violations?
Andy Imparato:
Well, I mean, I'm interested in how you would answer that question too, but because you're a teacher and I'm not, but from my perspective, you tell me if I'm wrong. I think part of the problem is that we have special education and general education. And I think that framing does a disservice to teachers because I think for most teachers, unless they're going into special education as their focus or their discipline, they're not learning enough in their training as a teacher about how to meet the needs of all students. They're not learning enough in their training as a teacher to have a lot of different tools in their toolkit that they can pull out to try with students who learn in different ways. And instead of worrying about whether the student has a particular label or whether they have a particular right under IDEA, I feel like all teachers should learn that in a modern classroom, you have to have multiple ways to reach children. You need to be ready to try lots of different things and you shouldn't get caught up on the kid's label and you should always try to learn and recognize that the kid is going to be able to teach you how to meet their needs if you're listening to the kid and paying attention to the kid.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. That was beautifully said. You hit the nail on the head. As a teacher, I would agree a hundred percent. What about administrators? Because I know, that as a teacher, if I'm a teacher who is ready, I say I am willing to try anything I can to make sure that I'm addressing the needs of all of my students, that I'm being that all-inclusive teacher, but there's pushback from my district on inclusive education. What would you say to administrators?
Andy Imparato:
Well, I think for me, I like to start with, what are your core values? You know, why did you go into being an administrator? And if, if one of your core values is that every child that crosses the threshold of this school is going to get the best quality education that we can provide for that child. Then start with that core value and spell out what that means in the context of a child who is gonna have a different set of needs and capacities, depending on what the school is willing to provide. I think some administrators are worried about legal requirements. Some administrators are worried about budgets. I'll never forget, you know, at my church in Baltimore, we had the mayor, the former mayor of Baltimore came and spoke to my church. And this is a progressive mayor. He was the first Black mayor of Baltimore,
Andy Imparato:
Kurt Schmoke. He's currently the President of the University of Baltimore, which is where my wife taught in Baltimore. But we had him come and speak at our school. And we just wanted him to talk about the future of education in Baltimore, right? So it wasn't about kids with disabilities, but he decided to talk about IDEA. And he said that he thought that IDEA was the most important civil rights law since this Civil Rights Act of 1964. But , and this was an important but, two thirds of the resources are going to one third of the children. That was his core message to a progressive church in Baltimore City. And I said, that's what we're up against with a lot of school administrators. They think that kids with disabilities are sucking resources away from other kids and that that is creating an equity problem.
Andy Imparato:
And I just don't think that they're very creative. I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I think some administrators are just not very creative in thinking about, well, is there a way to solve whatever the issues are for the kids with disabilities and improve the education for all the other students at the same time. It shouldn't be an either/or. And I firmly believe that there is. I firmly believe that universal design for learning improves the education environment for all students. It also gives them skills and core values that they can take with them into adulthood. So I think there's a solution to that problem, but unfortunately I think there's some zero-sum thinking on the part of school administrators who think that kids with disabilities are getting too many resources and too much attention, and that they don't have the luxury of doing that because they're trying to focus on all the other kids.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. Well-said, thank you. Okay, so you spoke to what teachers need to know. You spoke to what administrators need to know and what parents need to know. Now, my final question for you is what do students need to know about themselves and about their disabilities and their futures?
Andy Imparato:
Well, I know for me, as somebody dealing with a new diagnosis of bipolar disorder, as a young lawyer, it helped me to hear the idea that a disability is a natural part of the human experience and that your lived experience with your disability can be an asset. And it can inform the way you navigate the world in a way that makes you more interesting and better. And I think to the extent that children who are dealing with dyslexia or down syndrome or autism or ADHD, or whatever, can be exposed to the idea that their disability is natural, that neurodiversity is a positive thing, and that they're gonna have insights from their lived experience that make them more attractive for the jobs that they want to apply for, or more interesting as human beings or, you know, able to connect with other human beings in a different kind of way.
Andy Imparato:
Like all of that positive stuff to me is so important. And I just, it makes me very sad that we still, you know, I mean, we've had IDEA on the books since 1975. The disability rights movement has been around since before that. And that we're still not focusing enough on the positives. And I don't mean to think, I don't mean to imply, that there aren't negative things that happen connected to people's disabilities. But if you start out with the idea that disability's natural and then start thinking that the negative things are not natural, the negative things are what happens when our society doesn't respond appropriately to your disability. I just think that's a really important frame. And if people can kind of graduate from high school, being comfortable in their own skins, as young people with disabilities, feeling a connection to the global disability rights movement, feeling some disability pride and disability cultural identity, then I feel like our education system has done a great job. So, so for the students, I would just say, find people who see your disability as a gift. Find people who see your disability as natural and normal. And don't listen to the people who think differently about your disability.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you. That was beautiful, and so important. So I know that was, I said that was going to be my last question. I do have another question and that is: is there anything I didn't ask that you would like to share?
Andy Imparato:
Well, you know, we're gonna, I think you're gonna participate in it. We're having an Education Equity Summit next month. And we've got the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights at the US Department of Education, Catherine Lhamon has agreed to participate. And we've got the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the US Department of Labor has agreed to participate, Taryn Williams. But what I like about having the Department of Labor and the Department of Education coming together to talk about educational equity, is I feel like, ultimately, educational equity is about giving people a solid foundation to then go out into the world and have a life that, you know, helps them fulfill their dreams, whatever they are. So, you know, to me, part of the purpose of education is to prepare people for life after after school.
Andy Imparato:
And part of the purpose of inclusive employment is to help people with disabilities have success in the labor market. That's much easier to do if the people that have childhood onset disabilities get the right kinds of supports while they're in school and have, you know, a paid work experience while they're in school, that's a positive work experience that kind of sets them up for success as adulthood. So I, you know, we were having a national conversation about equity and I feel like educational equity is part of it, health equity is part of it. In California, we think about housing equity. We think about, you know, emergency preparedness and response and equity issues. And now we think about transit and transportation equity. But I really feel like if we can get education equity right in this state, then we're creating a solid foundation on which we can build all other kinds of equity.
Andy Imparato:
So I'm really excited about our summit on February 7th, I feel like one of the roles that Disability Rights California can play is as a convener. So we're trying to bring together the federal and state thought leaders on educational equity, writ large with federal and state thought leaders on disability, education and equity, and make sure that those conversations are one conversation. Because right now it feels like the people who live and breathe equity, don't always think about the disability aspects of it. And the people who live and breathe disability, don't always think about racial equity and other kinds of equity. So I'm hoping that this summit can bridge a little bit of that divide. And I'm just so excited that we have the federal participation that we have because Catherine Lhamon, to me, is the best Assistant Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education in the history of that role. She had that role under Obama and she liked it so much, she came back to do it again under Biden. But to me, she is as good as it gets in terms of somebody who thinks about equity across the board, and has deep knowledge and deep love and deep understanding of what that means for kids with disabilities.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. Wow. That's so exciting. Thank you, Andy, for your leadership and for DRCs leadership in that great endeavor. And I'm sure that it's gonna make a big difference having all of these agencies speaking, communicating, and working together to ensure equity across the board and much better quality of life for a lot of people in the future.
Andy Imparato:
Diana, am I allowed to ask you a question?
Diana Pastora Carson:
Sure.
Andy Imparato:
So what, what made you go into at teaching?
Diana Pastora Carson:
Well, gosh, caught me off guard with that, Andy. What made me go into teaching? I love kids. I love having fun with kids. I love seeing the sparkle in their eyes when they learn. And I really, you know, with my brother Joaquin and his experience of not being included, I really wanted to show that you can, you can value and include anyone in the education system. And I think that I did that in my classroom. Um, and
Andy Imparato:
Do you, do you feel like between the time when you did your preparation to start out teaching in a classroom and now do you feel like the field of education has improved and that inclusion is easier now than it was when you started? Or do you feel like we're still kind of pretty far from where we need to be?
Diana Pastora Carson:
I feel like there's more conversation about it. And, mind you, I worked in one school district and the majority of my time in one school and I had extraordinary administrators who let me do what I felt, you know, what I was compelled to do in terms of inclusion. When students left my classroom, if there was not that commitment from the administration and the psychologists in the district, then the administrators and the teachers' hands were tied to continue that. I do think that in some places there is much more openness to full inclusion and to really reconstructing how we, how we exist as an education system, how schools exist, what they look like, what they feel like. And then some school districts are still very much formatted, structured in the same way that they've always been. We have the silos of special education and general education, as you said, and that is where people's minds are. And so until we can change that, until we have the courage, the foresight and the will to make some scary changes. We're not gonna see a difference for those students who are excluded for much of the day, if not all of the day, especially students with more significant support needs, more significant communication support needs, behavior support needs especially.
Andy Imparato:
And do you have kind of a good response to the, the progressive urban mayor? Like my former mayor in Baltimore who says IDEA is a great civil rights law, but two thirds of the resources are going to one third of the kids. What, how would you respond to that as a teacher?
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not the one holding the purse. In my classroom, you know, I've got my kindergarten calendar and I've got my little squares, my rainbow rug with the squares of different colors. And I'm teaching the ABCs and the sounds of phonics and math and counting to 100. So I'm not holding that purse. But what I do know is that if we had a different way of housing school, if we had a different way of structuring what we offer to students, so that we didn't have to have a self, a self-contained classroom for my students all the time. But like you said, we share that, we give the best practices, the opportunities to all students whether they have a diagnosis or a label or not. Then I don't think that it has to be that two thirds of the resources are going to one third of the population.
Andy Imparato:
Yeah, and it's interesting. I appreciate that response. I'm not personally necessarily bothered that two thirds of the resources are going to one third of the kids. The question for me is how are those one third doing with those two thirds of the resources? Are they getting the outcomes that they deserve? Are they having great quality education? And then how are the other kids doing with less resources? And if the answer is everybody's doing great, then it sounds like a good allocation. If you give everybody the exact same resources, you're gonna have huge equity issues because they don't all show up at the school door with the same needs.
Diana Pastora Carson:
You're right. You're right. You caught me off guard. But I believe that too. In fact, I've shared this story before that, what I would tell my kindergartners, if somebody had an owie and they got a bandaid, then I wouldn't give a bandaid to everyone in the class because that's not what they all needed. You give the bandaid to the one that needs it the most. And not to say that a disability is a bad thing like an owie, but just, you know, that equity means everybody gets what it is that they need.
Andy Imparato:
Yeah. And, and I really believe that if the problem is that the pie is too small, then let's make the pie bigger, but let's not get in a fight about why are these people getting more than those people?
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right.
Andy Imparato:
And I don't know... My biggest challenge in California coming back after 30 years, is the savage inequality in our state. It just amazes me that we have the wealthiest people in the world in this state living alongside people who are homeless and we can't figure out how to solve that.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. Another issue for another day, Andy.
Andy Imparato:
But I do think that mindset that inequality is inevitable is getting baked into our state. And I do think it gets in the way of equity. Like inequality is not inevitable. We can decide that everybody in this state is gonna have a good life and is gonna have safe, affordable housing and is gonna have nutrition and is gonna have, you know, access to employment. And, you know, I just think we have a failure of imagination right now. And for me, part of it started with Proposition 13, I don't know if you remember Howard Jarvis. It took all this money out of the public system based on the idea that rich people shouldn't pay such high property taxes. And it destroyed schools, it destroyed higher education, it destroyed so many things that were the backbone of what made California great. So I don't know. I feel like equality, income inequality, is a big, big problem that has to be addressed if we want to have equity.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I know that a lot of teachers would appreciate that they would have the ability to meet the needs of all their students in their classroom and have the support from the higher ups to do so.
Andy Imparato:
Yeah. And I, and I wanna say, I hope I didn't come across as anti-teacher when I was talking about the importance of educating parents. But I do think in a civil rights context, the people who need to be educated first are the parents. And then the parents are the ones who typically educate the teachers, at least in the specific needs of their child. But if the parents are not really well-educated, then you're kind of rolling the dice in terms of what's happening in the classroom. The teachers can make a huge difference and do make a huge difference, but you can have a great fifth grade teacher and a horrible sixth grade teacher. So if the parent's not there to engage with the sixth grade teacher to make sure that the kid continues to get what they need, then you're still gonna have a problem for that child.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right. Yes. Thank you so much, Andy. I really appreciate this conversation. I appreciate you taking the time to do this and I appreciate your work.
Andy Imparato:
Yeah, well, it's mutual and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person at some point.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yes. Can't wait.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Beyond Awareness: Disability Awareness That Matters. If this was helpful to you, be sure to subscribe, rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. You can also follow me, Diana, on Instagram @dianapastoracarson and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/GoBeyondAwareness. Or you can go to my website for more information at www.DianaPastoraCarson.com. My books include Beyond Awareness: Bringing Disability into Diversity Work in K-12 Schools and Communities, as well as my children's book, Ed Roberts: Champion of Disability Rights. They can both be found on Amazon. For your free Beyond Awareness resource called the "5 Keys to Going Beyond Awareness," simply go to www.GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys. This podcast transcription and podcast guest information can be found in the show notes. Intro and outro music has been provided courtesy of Emmanuel Castro. Thank you again for joining me. Be well, be a lifelong learner, and let's be inclusive. See you next time.
