Vision To Learn, a nonprofit that helps to serve children's vision needs especially those in poverty or in Black and Latino communities, has achieved a milestone of providing 300,000 children in California with glasses since the organization began bringing vision care directly to students in schools.
Vision To Learn founder Austin Beutner joined California Teachers Association President David Goldberg and Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Andrés E. Chait on October 5 at 24th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles for an event where they also launched an effort to provide needed glasses to every child in Los Angeles Unified’s Community Schools with mobile vision clinics that are staffed by trained and licensed eyecare professionals.
“More than 4 million children across the country go to school every day without the glasses they need,” Beutner said in a press release. “Every child in every school, everywhere in the country, should have the glasses they need to succeed in school and in life.”
The press release also cited research published in JAMA Ophthalmology that examined the educational impact of providing glasses to children who need them. Children who received glasses through the Vision for Baltimore program gained the equivalent of 2 to 4 months of additional learning.1 The largest gains—equivalent to as much as 6 months of learning—were observed among children in the bottom quarter of their class academically and among students with learning differences and disabilities.1
Goldberg said teachers can observe the effects of students’ vision on their ability to participate in the classroom and described Vision To Learn’s school-based approach as a model that could expand across California.
“Supporting our students means supporting the whole child,” Chait said in the press release. “When community partners help provide something as essential as a pair of glasses, a medical exam or a vaccination, they are removing barriers that can stand between a child and their ability to learn and thrive.”
Reference:
1. Johns Hopkins. Eyeglasses for school kids boosts academic performance. Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Accessed October 7, 2026. https://bioethics.jhu.edu/topic/access-to-and-equity-in-health-care/