Consortium of Foundations Addresses the Role of Health in Education Policy Reform
Consortium of Foundations Addresses the Role of Health in Education Policy Reform
The California Endowment has announced the release of the first in a series of reports as part of a multiyear, multi-foundation initiative designed to help ensure that student health plays a central role in California's education reform agenda.
Funded by the endowment and the James Irvine and William and Flora Hewlett foundations, the California Education Supports Project will work to explore the complex connection between health and education in order to develop policy recommendations that foster healthy and supportive school and community environments. To that end, the consortium will work with administration officials, state legislators, and key members of the education community to identify near- and long-term solutions that promote student health and learning.
"An education agenda that focuses exclusively on curriculum-based reform fails to consider the multitude of health factors that contribute to a student's ability to focus and engage in learning," said Dr. Gregory Austin, director of the WestEd Health and Human Development Program. "Even the best teacher armed with the most interesting curriculum cannot reach a student who is absent due to asthma, distracted by a toothache, or preoccupied with fears of violence."
Developed jointly by WestEd and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, the report,
The Critical Connection Between Health and Academic Achievement: How Schools and Policymakers Can Achieve a Positive Impact (22 pages, PDF), provides details on the scope of the project. Over the next several months, the project will commission a series of issue-specific papers that explore the impact of the various health factors on academic achievement in order to develop a framework for injecting health — physical, mental, and developmental — into the state's education reform dialogue.
"For too long California has addressed health and education as separate issues, often resulting in conflicting policies that fail to take into account their interdependence," said California Endowment president and CEO Robert K. Ross. "Our goal with the California Education Supports Project is to identify actionable strategies to improve the way that health is addressed in our schools and in our communities."
“The California Endowment, Consortium of Foundations Address the Role of Health in Education Policy Reform.”
California Endowment Press Release
11/03/09.
Primary Subject: Health
Secondary Subject(s): Education, Public Affairs
Location(s): California, Los Angeles, Menlo Park, San Francisco
FC014100
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