Some disability activists argue that little gain was made by people with disabilities in the twenty years following the controversial reforms of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This article argues that the same uncertainty cannot be tolerated for the even broader reforms of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Efforts are needed now to establish baseline data for key indicators and to track the indicators over time. The article evaluates indicators for each of the legislative goals in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nor should analysts ignore assessing the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. A comparison of national studies analyzing longitudinal earnings data collected for federal-state vocational rehabilitation program cohorts before and after full implementation of the Rehabilitation Act reveals that employment and earnings gains were realized by people with disabilities provided job training and placement in that program following the act's reforms.
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References
1.
1. Judith Innes, Knowledge and Public Policy: The Search for Meaningful Indicators, 2d ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1990).
2.
2. Interviews with the President's Committee for the Handicapped, reviewed in Berkeley Planning Associates, “A Study of Accommodations Provided to Handicapped Employees by Federal Contractors” (Report prepared for U.S. Department of Labor, Oct. 1982).
3.
Saad Z. Nagi , An Epidemiology of Disability Among Adults in the United States (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1975).
4.
Andrejs Skaburskis and Frederick C. Collignon, “The Use of Production Functions in Program Evaluation: An Assessment of the Vocational Rehabilitation Program,”Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, pp. 1-24 (Sept. 1991).
5.
Edward Yelinet al. , “Toward an Epidemiology of Work Disability,”Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 58(3):386-415 (1980).
6.
Jonathan S. Leonard , “Labor Supply Incentives and Disincentives for Disabled Persons,” in Disability and the Labor Market, ed. Monroe Berkowitz and M. Anne Hill (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1986), pp. 64-94.
7.
7. Robert H. Haveman, Victor Halberstadt, and Richard V. Burkhauser, eds., Public Policy Toward Disabled Workers: Cross-National Analyses of Economic Impacts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).
8.
idem, “Development of Performance Measures for Supported Employment Programs” (Report prepared for U.S. National Institute of Handicapped Research, July 1986); idem, “Alternative Conceptual Approaches to Standards” (Report prepared for Rehabilitation Services Administration, DHEW, 1977); idem, “VR Program Evaluation Standards: A Critique of the State of the Art” (Report prepared for Rehabilitation Services Administration, DHEW, 1977).
9.
idem, “Development of Performance Measures”; idem, “Alternative Conceptual Approaches to Standards”; idem, “VR Program Evaluation Standards: A Critique.”
10.
idem, “Development of Performance Measures”; idem, “Alternative Conceptual Approaches to Standards”; idem, “VR Program Evaluation Standards: A Critique.”
11.
idem, Evaluation of the ACCESS: Medical Long-Term Care Demonstration Project (Report to Health Care Financing Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Oct. 1986).
12.
12. Ibid. Such findings and concerns are not new, however. Similar conclusions were drawn in Urban Institute, Report of the Comprehensive Needs Study (Report prepared for Rehabilitation Services Administration, DHEW, May 1975).
13.
idem, “Measuring and Valuing Independent Living Impacts: A Methodological Review” (Report submitted to California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, 1978); idem, “Evaluation of the Title VII Part B Centers for Independent Living Program” (Report submitted to Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education, 1986).
14.
14. See Joseph B. Moriarty, The Preliminary Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ) (Morgantown: West Virginia Research and Training Center, 1991).
15.
15. Ibid. See also the literature reviews in Berkeley Planning Associates, “Design for a Comprehensive Study.”
16.
Berkeley Planning Associates , “Analysis of Program Trends and Performance in the Federal-State Vocational Rehabilitation Program” (Report prepared for Office of Planning, Budget and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Education, July 1989).
17.
17. Frederick C. Collignon, “Benefit-Cost Analyses Conducted by State Agencies,” in Measuring the Efficiency of Public Programs: Costs and Benefits in Vocational Rehabilitation, ed. Monroe Berkowitz (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988).
18.
18. Berkeley Planning Associates, “Development of Performance Measures.”
19.
idem, “VR Program Evaluation Standards: Final Report.”
20.
idem, The Economics of Vocational Rehabilitation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965).
21.
21. Collignon, “Benefit-Cost Analyses.”
22.
22. Berkeley Planning Associates, “A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the FY1985 Federal-State Vocational Rehabilitation Program, Including a Model for Ongoing Program Use” (Report prepared for Office of Planning, Budget and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Education, Apr. 1989).
23.
John H. Noble , “The Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Guide to Priority-Setting in Rehabilitation,”Evaluation Quarterly, 1:347-380 (1977).
24.
More generally for social programs, see Human Services Research Institute and Berkeley Planning Associates, “Assuring the Quality of Human Services: A Conceptual Analysis” (Report prepared for Office of Human Development Services, DHEW, Jan. 1980).
25.
See, for example, Berkeley Planning Associates, “Taxpayer Payback Analyses of Vocational Rehabilitation Services Provided by the California Department of Rehabilitation” (Report prepared for California Department of Rehabilitation, 1978).
26.
For a review and evaluation of applications using clinician assessments in related fields, see idem, Marin County Demonstration to Create an Integrated System of Employment and Mental Health Services for Those with Mental Illness Histories (Report prepared for U.S. National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research and Marin Community Foundation, 1987); idem, Testing Measures of Performance for Protective Services (Report prepared for State of Michigan Department of Social Services, Apr. 1981); idem, Evaluation of the Joint OCD/SRS Demonstration Projects in Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 3 (Report prepared for National Center for Health Services Research, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, DHEW, Dec. 1977).
27.
John H. Noble and Frederick C. Collignon, “Systems Barriers to Supported Employment for Persons with Chronic Mental Illness,”Psycho-Social Rehabilitation Journal, pp. 25-44 (Oct. 1987).
28.
JWK International Corporation , “Vocational Rehabilitation Performance Evaluation Standards Study” (Report to Rehabilitation Services Administration, DHEW, Aug. 1975).
29.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops , Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy (Washington, DC: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1986).
30.
Sharp Rehabilitation Center and Berkeley Planning Associates , “Evaluation of Rehabilitation Services to Head Injury Trauma Victims” (Report prepared for U.S. National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, 1992-94).
32. A protocol assembling indicators for assessing a community's physical and other structural adequacies for supporting independent living is being developed by the World Institute of Disability and InfoUse, and is expected to be available for broader use by 1997.
33.
33. Berkeley Planning Associates, Use of the Social Security Data-Link for Assessing the Impact of the Federal-State Vocational Rehabilitation Program (Report prepared for Office of Planning, Budget and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Education, Jan. 1989).
34.
idem, Vocational Rehabilitation Program: Client Characteristics, Services Received and Employment Outcomes, testimony of Acting Director Robert York to Subcommittee on Select Education, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, 12 Nov. 1991.
