ESL Parent Involvement and High School Student Achievement

Introduction

When high school students enter school, they have already been educated for at least eight years. This critical learning period is sometimes spent primarily with their parents, who influence nearly all aspects of their lives. Throughout this time, parents undertake the challenging task of preparing their children to become responsible, knowledgeable, capable, and caring individuals. Although the willingness, skills, and resources to support this growth and development vary significantly among parents (Nina & Lu, 2012), the family environment is widely regarded as the foundation of a child's early education and plays a critical role in determining what children bring to school as learners.

Another important factor is the way parents engage with the school their teenager attends. Parent involvement in the education of ESL students in high schools, and the nature of that involvement, has changed considerably over time. In the agricultural era, parents — typically fathers — held influence over schools but were not physically present in them. Parents in small rural communities had a degree of power over how schools were operated, sometimes even dictating how teachers could behave outside the classroom. Today, a significant challenge involves non-English speaking parents, for whom the language barrier makes engagement with their teenagers' schooling considerably more difficult. However, the more English a parent knows, the greater their ability to support their child's education.

Research Question 1: Do high school students' grades improve when their non-English speaking parents begin attending ESL (English as a Second Language) classes?

Research Questions and Hypothesis

Research Question 2: Do high school students achieve a higher attendance record when their non-English speaking parents begin attending ESL (English as a Second Language) classes?

Background and Literature Review

Hypothesis: It is hypothesized that students with non-English speaking parents attend school more often when their parents begin attending ESL classes, and subsequently show improvements in their grades.

Parents who take their role in school involvement seriously are perceived as leading strong families. When researchers have attempted to understand how children learn best, achievement test scores were studied and compared across weak and strong family backgrounds and between unsuccessful and successful schools. Academic achievement, as measured by test scores, was found to correlate more closely with characteristics of a child's family than with features of the school the child attended.

Success at school for ESL students begins at home, with non-English speaking parents serving as the teenager's first role models and teachers. As their children's first educators, non-English speaking parents may have already demonstrated the attitudes and values they hope their children will adopt and may have attended to the physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing of their children alongside their educational development. In guiding their children toward their highest potential, parents may also recognize and nurture the unique abilities they observe in their children and create opportunities for those abilities to flourish. As Ortmeier-Hooper (2008) notes in the introduction to Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading: "The parent and the home environment teach the child his or her first lessons" (p. vi).

According to Laurence Steinberg (2011), children whose non-English speaking parents are enrolled in ESL classes and are involved in their education perform better in school than high school students of comparable ability whose parents are not involved. The form of parent participation that matters most is the kind that brings parents actively into the school environment and consists of two-way communication between school and home. Non-English speaking parents who attend school more frequently tend to have children who achieve more, and their involvement has been shown to increase student academic performance.

Much of the research on parent involvement in schools has focused on its positive influence on students' academic achievement (Nina & Lu, 2012). In addition to academic performance, student behaviors and attitudes have also been shown to improve when parents are involved (Saito & Miriam, 2012). Ernest L. Boyer emphasizes the importance of the family as central to education, arguing that when those in the home come to know those at school, the child benefits (Ortmeier-Hooper, 2008).