Phil Ammann
As George Clooney and the cast portraying the ill-fated anglers of the Andrea Gail set out to sea, a TV weatherman foreshadowed their impending doom.
His face weathered with concern, forecaster Todd Gross pondered calamity.
“Look, look at this. We got Hurricane Grace moving north off the Atlantic seaboard. … Two, this low south off Sable Island, ready to explode. Look at this. Three, a fresh cold front swooping down from Canada. But it’s caught a ride on the Jet Stream … and is motoring hell-bent towards the Atlantic.”
The confluence, he observed, “would be a disaster of epic proportions. It would be … the perfect storm.”
Unimaginable calamity isn’t limited to the silver screen.
Don’t look now — a storm is coming. A perfect storm. And hundreds of thousands of capable wannabe workers could be lost.
Look, look at this. We’ve got new research from the Florida Chamber Foundation revealing the shameful marginalization of employable Floridians with disabilities. The report found more than 700,000 of the 1.13 million Floridians between 16 and 65 with disabilities may yearn to work — yet find themselves sidelined.
That should trouble all Floridians, warned Dr. Susanne Homant, president and CEO of The Able Trust, a Tallahassee-based public-private partnership that helps Floridians with disabilities secure worthy employment and partly funded the research.
“Part of the successful growth of Florida’s economy is access to all the talent in Florida and in creating a diverse and inclusive workforce,” Homant said.
Also, Florida’s problem careens toward Worse-ville. New Education Week research reveals rising numbers of students ages 6-21 with disabilities.
The jump is particularly acute among students with hidden disabilities. Autism, for example, soared 165 percent between the 2005-06 and 2014-15 school years. Similarly, specific learning disabilities — impairments of the ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell and calculate — also climbed between 2013-14 and 2014-15.
That troubling trend threatens to beef up Florida’s appallingly abundant roster of unemployed benchwarmers with invisible disabilities.
Why? America largely stumbles in graduating students with learning disabilities. Florida does a particularly lousy job, according to a recent national study. Only 52.3 percent of LD students ever march to “Pomp and Circumstance.” That’s compared to 78.9 percent of students without disabilities who graduate.
Finding a decent job today without a high school diploma is difficult. With a learning disability — and without a sheepskin — it’s easier to find a galloping unicorn.
Out of compassion — or enlightened self-interest — Florida is slowly turning the tide.
George J. Hagerty, president of Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla., which specializes in educating LD and ADHD students, wrote about the progress in a recent Palm Beach Post op-ed. He pointed out that state lawmakers this session enacted sound legislation “that significantly enhances educational opportunities, supports post-high school vocational and post-secondary campus-based training, and provides incentives for affirmatively recruiting and employing citizens of unique abilities.”
Their work doesn’t mean employers wriggle off the hook.
Look at this. Nearly 26 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, a yawning job gap remains between those with disabilities and those without.
A survey last year by British charity Mencap unearthed employer misgivings. Workers would feel queer working with LD colleagues, 23 percent of employers said; others said LD employees would give customers the heebie-jeebies.
Understandable, if uninformed.
Retarded. Slow. Dull. Seventy percent of educators, parents and the hoi polloi mistakenly link learning disabilities and mental retardation.
That warped perspective must change. Soon.
Tony Carvajal, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber Foundation, hinted in a recent news release that pragmatism might trump morality in spurring change.
“With an additional 6 million more residents expected by 2030 and 2 million more jobs to fill, it will be critical to help every Floridian that wants to work find a job,” Carvajal said.
To that end, his foundation, The Able Trust, and local chambers of commerce have piloted an internship program to get Floridians with disabilities off the employment bench.
A fine gesture. But Florida’s able disabled no longer can afford to wait. It’s time to rip off the scarlet “R” misnomer from the invisibly disabled. And it’s time employers truly embrace inclusion — and toss a lifeline to a capable talent pool lost in a sea of unproductivity.
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Former award-winning Orlando Sentinel columnist Darryl E. Owens now serves as director of communication at Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla., the first higher education institution accredited to award bachelor’s degrees exclusively to students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and other learning differences. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
