; ensuring sufficient teachers of children who are deafblind, interveners, 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 children and youth who are blind or visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, deafdisabled, or deafblind through specialized instructional services and methodologies designed to meet their unique language and learning needs. (2) To better ensure delivery of high-quality early intervention services to children and youth who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafdisabled, or deafblind, and their families, through specialized services and methodologies designed to meet their unique language 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 children and youth who are blind or visually impaired. (4) To enhance accountability for the provision of such services. (5) To support the development of personnel serving children and youth who are blind or visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, deafdisabled, or deafblind. 3. Findings 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 school in the United States