Opportunity to Learn: The Health Connection

Children, especially poor African American children, are not afforded an equal opportunity to learn if the key barriers to their health have not been addressed-no matter what the planned reform or compensatory or enrichment educational strategies may be. Therefore, any serious, committed effort to provide poor African American students with an opportunity to learn must include a comprehensive approach to addressing the health and social environment barriers that interfere with these children reaching their potentials as students and citizens (National Commission on the Role of the School and the Community in Improving Adolescent Health, 1990; National Health Education Consortium, 1990). Addressing the specific questions and issues regarding health-related barriers to learning that affect America's minorities who are living in poverty, especially African Americans, is the subject of this article. As a report on business and the public schools issued by the Committee for Economic Development warns: