What is Federal Quota?
The Federal Act to Promote the Education of the Blind was enacted by Congress in 1879. This Act set up a system to provide free textbooks and other hands-on instructional materials for students who were blind across the U.S. The Act named the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) as the sole, national central source of these educational materials.
Today the Act continues to be a means for providing adapted instructional materials to eligible students and adults in the United States and its territories. An annual registration of eligible individuals determines a per capita amount of money designated for the purchase of instructional materials produced by the American Printing House for the Blind. These funds are credited to Federal Quota accounts, which are maintained and administered by APH and its Ex Officio Trustees throughout the country.
Initially, APH was chartered to emboss tactile books and to produce simple “tangible apparatus.” Today, APH continues this proud tradition by producing hundreds of textbooks in a variety of media and by manufacturing and maintaining an extensive inventory of commercially-unavailable instructional kits, aids, tools, supplies, software, and electronics.