Seeing what's on the white board in front of the classroom doesn't mean you can read the textbook in front of your nose, so say lawmakers who are pushing a bill to have more comprehensive eye exams for students in Washington public schools.
The problem, as those supporting the bill see it, is that school eye exams are only required to measure distance vision, not near vision.Jene Jones is a former teacher who testified for the bill on behalf the League of Education Voters.
"In 2007, I realized for the first time that one of my students was three years below academic levels simply because he couldn’t see, " Jones said.
She said the teachers didn't catch it because the student had been through a vision screening and passed. She says kids can go years without getting the glasses they need because everyone from parents to pediatricians assume the school eye test catches any problems.
But it doesn't pick up on a student who is far sighted and has trouble reading words close up. Retired teacher Katie Johnson talked about a second-grade student she remembered named Alexandra. Johnson said she asked Alexandra what the words were doing when she was trying to read.
"And she said, 'Well, they move toward the center of the book and some of them are black and some of them are lighter, and then they fall off the edge of the page. Don't they do that when you read?'" Johnson said.
Advocates say requiring distance and up close vision tests is about fairness. They point out that low-income children are less likely than children of wealthier parents to go to an eye doctor for a comprehensive exam.
Between 2005 and 2008, as part of a pilot project in King County, an optometrist tested 300 children in juvenile detention.
Of those, 80 percent either had astigmatism or were far sighted, according to the optometrist, Dr. Edward Lawrence Jones.
"Seventy three percent of the problems could be fixed immediately with glasses," he told lawmakers.
