; ensuring sufficient teachers of the deaf-blind and early intervention specialists. 2. Purposes The purposes of this Act are as follows: (1) To better ensure delivery of high quality special education and related services to students with visual disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing or who are deaf-blind through specialized instructional services and methodologies designed to meet their unique language, communication, and learning needs. (2) To better ensure delivery of high quality early intervention services to infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing or who are deaf-blind and their families through specialized services and methodologies designed to meet their unique language, communication, and other developmental needs. (3) To foster the proliferation of research supporting the development and evaluation of effective and innovative assessments and instructional methodologies consonant with the unique learning needs of students with visual disabilities. (4) To enhance accountability for the provision of such services. (5) To support the development of personnel serving students with visual disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing or who are deaf-blind. 3. Findings The Congress finds the following: (1) When American author, Mark Twain, immortalized Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, with the moniker the miracle worker , his words, though meant as praise, reflect the misconception that educating individuals with disabilities is a nearly insurmountable task requiring extraordinary feats performed by gifted and saintly persons. Rather, the work of teaching children with disabilities can and does occur when committed and qualified but everyday special educators are properly prepared and supported to practice their professions. Yet, the educational systems within which they act must also be held accountable for results. (2) In 1817, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and a deaf teacher, Laurent Clerc, opened the first American school for deaf students—the American School for the