The provision of quality schools, textbooks, and teachers can result in effective education only if a child is in school and ready and able to learn. The child is at the center of efforts to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2015 and to address the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of universal basic education and gender equality in educational access. A child who is hungry or sick will not be able to complete a basic education of good quality. In order to achieve EFA, it is essential that the poorest children, who suffer most from ill health and hunger, are able to attend school and learn while there. This paper will articulate the reasoning behind the SABER-school health and school feeding frameworks. The paper will describe: 1) the history and development of a common framework for implementing school health programs; 2) how SABER-school health and school feeding have built on this history to create rubric-frameworks for benchmarking education policies in developing countries; 3) the evidence base for the rubric-frameworks; and 4) the plan for implementing these frameworks.