On September 27, the bipartisan bill Alice Cogswell and Anne Sullivan Macy Act, aimed to improve services and education opportunities for students who are deaf, blind, hard of hearing, visually impaired and deafblind, was reintroduced to the U.S. House and Senate by U.S. Representatives Matt Cartwright and David McKinley, along with Senators Edward J. Markey and Shelley Moore Capito. This bill aims to make the education system better for students with visual or hearing disabilities.

The bill is named after Alice Cogswell, the first formally educated deaf student in the United States, and Anne Sullivan, Hellen Keller’s teacher. It wants to improve how students with disabilities are taught and ensure they get the right services. It also wants to make sure that schools report how well they're doing with education for individuals with disabilities and provide more training for teachers who work with these students. Lastly, it wants to remind the Department of Education that it has a job to ensure all students get a proper education.

The Cogswell-Macy Act has specific rules, like making sure states identify and help students with visual or hearing disabilities and keep parents and teachers up to date and informed about specialized instruction. It also establishes the Anne Sullivan Macy Center of Vision Loss and Educational Excellence within the Department of Education as a national resource for students with visual disabilities.

Numerous organizations, including the Scranton School for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf (CEASD), the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER), The National Intervener & Advocate Association (NIAA), and the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), have endorsed this legislation because they think it will help students with disabilities have a better education. Overall, this law will strengthen the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to improve results for deaf, hard of hearing, blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind children.

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