The Relation between Child Health and Academic Achievement
Eric Eide,
Economics
Schools have long recognized the relation between student health and academic achievement, and have played a role in diagnosing and treating a variety of student health conditions that may be negatively associated with educational progress. Given the current focus in the U.S. on student achievement and accountability (e.g. No Child Left Behind Act), it would be easy for schools to cut back on school-based health provision in order to implement some other educational policy aimed at raising test scores. But if the diagnosis and treatment of student health conditions has a larger demonstrated effect on student achievement than other school policies, then schools should be careful about trimming these health costs from their budgets. In this paper we estimate the effect of a number of health conditions on student educational outcomes, in order to better understand the role of child health in educational progress.
