Change an Innovative Change: Helping

Change

An Innovative Change: Helping parents better help their children

Mom, I need some help with my homework." For some parents, these words are a welcome phrase that signifies their child's love, trust and healthy dependence upon the child's mother or father. For other parents, these words are dreaded signal that what should be a relaxing evening is now going to be spent working on a science project due tomorrow, or figuring out a difficult algebra assignment using concepts they haven't been acquainted with since high school. But imagine the grief of a parent who cannot even speak the language of her child's schooling. This impedes the child's education in a number of ways, including his or her ability to get assistance at home, the parent's ability to learn about the child's academic abilities from the child's teacher, and the child's ability to practice his or her school vocabulary during informal conversations at home (Heredia, 1999). It also makes the parents less involved with the school community in terms of school fundraisers and attendance at school plays and sporting events, which are conducted in a language they cannot understand.

After the passage of Proposition 227 in California, in schools and adult education centers across California, more and mothers and fathers set aside household chores, put their preschool children in day care and went back to school themselves. A higher percentage of adults took English language classes to better help their school-age children with homework and study for tests. Their primarily motivation was to either help their family better endure the effects of the end of bilingual education in California's public schools, or to take advantage of Proposition 227's new, state-funded community tutoring program. The proposition set aside $50 million a year for ten years so school districts could provide after-school family literacy programs. The amount of money each district received for adult tutoring was based on a formula using the number of limited English-speaking students per district (Heredia, 1999).

Even a harshly critical study of the effects of Proposition 227 entitled "Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K - 12," admitted "The Community-Based English Tutoring (CBET) Program, authorized as part of Proposition 227, is generally popular with educators and community participants" (Parrish et al., 2002: 10). Parents were enthusiastic about their ability to help their children, even parents who had minimal schooling in their country of birth. Another positive feature of the program was its acknowledgement of the extensive work and family demands placed upon the shoulders of recent immigrants. Some of the after-school English tutoring classes for had day care and transportation to and from class as well as evening and daytime schedules (Heredia, 1999).

Overall, "many of the adult participants we interviewed voiced satisfaction with the amount of English they have learned through the program. They said their ability to understand English has improved and the level of confidence in their own abilities has increased, allowing them to speak with their children's teachers, understand the information sent home from the school, and assist with their children's homework" (Parrish et al., 2000: 92). The participants also found many hidden benefits for themselves, as they said they felt more a part of the wider California community and had expanded job opportunities as a result of their greater level of English proficiency.

The study "Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K - 12" notes that the main aim of the program was to improve the performance of children in school. The study criticized the tutoring for not being coordinated with the programs at the local school districts. While over 50% of the CBET coordinators surveyed said that they had the impression that the CBET program had improved the English proficiency of the students in their district only 15% of those surveyed reported having data to support this impression. (Parrish et al., 2002: 93) However, one might point out that substantial gains in English literacy are unlikely to show up within a 2-year period on student tests, while there still might be an unquantifiable improvement in children's comfort level in speaking English at home.