Have you seen those stories about drivers getting stuck on flooded roads? Several times a year, there's a torrential downpour, and no matter how many warnings are issued, there's someone who just drives through and needs to be rescued. When they get their fifteen minutes of fame on the local news, they always say, "It didn't look that bad."

These are people with 20/20 vision, and they have had a lesson about sight which none of us like to admit. It's not always reliable.

If fully sighted people can occasionally run afoul of the limitations of human vision, how much more does it happen with those with significant vision loss?  Determining at what point a child with low vision should no longer be encouraged to trust their eyes is what Special Education teachers are supposed to do. But, these well-meaning professionals often have low expectations for their young charges. They are inclined to push them to use their eyes and accept lower levels of achievement rather than teaching them non-visual skills. This "sighted bias" is the issue at the root of America's Braille literacy crisis.

Parents and teachers are reluctant to admit that a child's vision is insufficient to allow them to reach their full potential using print.  There is such a bias against Braille that even legally blind children with diseases that cause total blindness are forced to struggle over large print. They need hours to do what takes their sighted peers twenty minutes.  They have no time for hobbies or friends.  They often have headaches and other problems from eye strain. Despite their Herculean efforts, they fall further and further behind academically and socially. 

Just 10% of America's blind kids are taught to read and write Braille, the only tool offering true literacy on a par with print. It affects us all, because it results in lower employment of blind adults and the need for tax-payer support. Seventy percent of working-age, blind adults are unemployed. Of the thirty percent who work, ninety percent read Braille. 

The US Congress acknowledged Braille's importance with the Louise Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar, released March 26, 2009.

Sales support the "Braille Readers are Leaders" campaign of the National Federation of the Blind, which seeks to double the number of blind kids learning Braille by 2015.

Blind people have proven that blindness is no obstacle to being lawyers, chemists, engineers, mechanics, journalists, and so on.  Braille is now more widely available and portable because of advances in technology.  There are Braille embossers that function with computers like printers do and portable Braille note takers.

It's time for society to embrace its blind members as equals and address these problems.