艾丽斯·科格斯韦尔与安妮·沙利文·梅西法案

Requires sign language or Braille for deaf and blind students — and puts state funding at risk if their schools close.

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If your child is deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or deafblind, school services would change. Deaf students would get instruction in American Sign Language unless their parents waive it. Blind students would get Braille instruction by default. Skipping it would take a vision teacher's assessment and the parent's written consent. Children who are deafblind could get an intervener, a trained aide who works with them one-on-one. Training to live with vision loss would join the list of school services. Books in Braille, large print, or audio would reach more students. States would have to look for students who are deaf or blind but counted under another disability label. Those students would get the same services. Each state would file a written plan with the Education Department within two years. States would also have to keep a full range of school settings open, from regular classes to specialized schools. Closing or merging a school for the deaf or the blind would count as cutting special-education support. That would put the state's federal money at risk. One part cuts the other way. A school for the deaf could skip writing individual plans for most of its students. The bill would also create the Anne Sullivan Macy Center inside the Education Department. It would fund research, teacher training, and enrichment programs for blind students. A group of outside partners would run it under a contract of at least five years. The rules for who can qualify are narrow. No dollar amount is set. The bill says funding could not drop for four years after any year Congress pays for it. The board advising the center would be exempt from the open-meeting law that covers most federal boards. The bill was introduced in June 2026 and sits in committee.