We Must Ensure Children Get the Vision Care They Need (Sen. Kit Bond)

The most important tool kids will take to school is their eyes. Good vision is critical to learning, in fact, 80 percent of what kids learn in their early school years is visual. Unfortunately, that fact is often overlooked — only one in three children receive any form of preventive vision care before entering school. That means many kids are in school with an undetected vision problem. One in four children has a vision problem that can interfere with learning. Some children are even labeled “disruptive

To ensure that children get the vital vision care that they need to succeed, today Sen. Dodd (D-Conn.) and I introduced the Vision Care for Kids Act which will establish a grant program to compliment and encourage existing state efforts to improve children’ s vision care.

We need to do this. We must improve vision care for children to better equip them to succeed in school and in life.