How can California teach more adults to read in English?

Transcript:

ANNE:

Welcome to Education Beat. I’m Anne Vasquez, CEO of EdSource.

For adults who can’t read, all kinds of things most take for granted can be a struggle. Things like applying for jobs or loans, helping a child with homework or reading directions on a medicine bottle.

California has one of the lowest rates of English literacy in the U.S. Almost 1 third of adults in the state can do little more than fill out a basic form or read a very simple piece of writing. A big portion of them are immigrants.

Experts say programs aimed at addressing poor literacy reach only a fraction of adults who need help. What can California do to boost its adult literacy rates, especially in immigrant communities? Here’s this week’s Education Beat, with host Zaidee Stavely.

ZAIDEE :

When Marcelina Chamu immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, decades ago, she longed to do more than just get by. She hoped to learn to read, write and speak English and become a citizen. But it was hard to find the time to take classes.

Marcelina works as a janitor in Orange, California. She clocks in at 6 every night, and gets off at 4 in the morning.

MARCELINA:

Pues pues no le voy a negar, es muy difícil para uno que trabaja uno hasta la madrugada. Es levantarse y tener que ponerse uno a estudiar.

Zaidee:

[Translating] “It is very difficult for someone who works until dawn to get up and start studying,” she says.

And she had a lot of catching up to do.

MARCELINA:

Mi educación nomás fue allá en mi país nomás este. Estudié hasta tercer grado de primaria  y ya hasta ahí nada más .

ZAIDEE:

In Mexico, Marcelina only attended school up to the third grade. For decades, she put off continuing her education, while raising her four children and working. She’s now 58. With her limited English and reading and writing skills, she’s faced a lot of challenges. For example, she says, she’s had a hard time filling out medical forms.

MARCELINA:

se me ha hecho difícil porque como ya hoy estoy, estoy sola nomás. Yo vivo yo y yo y mi esposo nos tenemos que acomodar nosotros así para llenar documentos para todo. Pero si es lo que pasa, que yo lo entiendo muchas, muchas palabras, yo la entiendo y también los, los, lo se leer y escribir. Lo que pasa que me siempre estoy con la vergüenza, que cómo lo voy a cómo lo voy a hablar?

ZAIDEE:

[Translating] It’s hard, she says because now that her kids are grown, she lives alone with her husband, and they have to fill out forms on their own.  “I understand a lot of words,” she says. “But I am always ashamed to speak.”

This is Education Beat: Getting to the heart of California schools. I’m Zaidee Stavely. This week: Reaching California’s millions of adults with limited literacy.

Marcelina is by no means alone. Almost 1 in 3 adults in California have a very basic level of reading and writing in English. Many of them, like her, are immigrants.

My colleague Emma Gallegos wrote about this for EdSource.

ZAIDEE:

Hi Emma.

EMMA:

Hi Zaidee.

ZAIDEE:

So Emma, tell us how big, how big of an issue is this? How many, how many adults in California can’t read in English?

EMMA:

Yeah. Okay. So, um, we are number two in the country for having low literacy just behind New Mexico. It is three out of 10. Um, and so not that three outta 10 can represent both people who grew up here and didn’t learn to read well, or it can represent, um, an immigrant, which is who I wrote about for this story. Um, and, you know, it could just be that they don’t, they don’t know English well. Um, or it could also be that they’re, they also have poor literacy in their home language, so it can represent quite a spectrum.

ZAIDEE:

So the survey to measure literacy is only done in English, right, we don’t have a good sense of whether adults answering it may know how to read and write in another language. So really what they’re measuring is how many people can read and write in English.

EMMA:

Right.

ZAIDEE:

Okay. Sorry, someone, someone was writing me. My two 30 is changing to two 40, which I’m telling them. Great. That’s perfect. Okay, perfect. Um, um, and so why did you choose to write about immigrants?

EMMA:

Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I actually originally set out to do this story just focusing generally on, um, adults who struggle to read. As I was researching it, I realized that in California in particular, um, this is a huge issue for immigrants.

EMMA:

Okay. Alright. Um, yeah, so, you know, there’s an international survey that’s done about every 10 years or so, and, um, and it, it just tests, um, adults in different countries in whatever the official language is. And, um, you know, so this, this test, um, it’s also measuring whether someone’s proficient in English. Um, I don’t know if I’m saying that well, sorry, . Um, I mean, there’s actually data that shows that, um, immigrants were really twice as likely as native born, um, as native born Americans to, um, to struggle with reading. Well, so, and that’s nationally. Um, and you know, in California we have such a high population of immigrants, and so I think that’s a big part of why our scores are so low. We are so low. We have a lot of immigrants who struggle in English more so than any other place in the country.

ZAIDEE:

Okay. Is literacy lower in certain areas of California?

EMMA:

Yes.  Literacy is lower in different parts of California. Um, and you know, this is something that I saw across the board and why I decided to focus on immigrants particularly is when you look at the map, um, of California and even the United States, you can really see that there’s a migration pattern. So, um, low literacy is particularly concentrated in the Central Valley, um, parts of the central coast, also Imperial Valley, and if you know California well, you know, all those places, um, have a lot of, um, agricultural workers and a lot of those agriculture agricultural workers are immigrants. And this is a job where you really don’t need any kind of formal education. So, um, in the Central Valley, um, about four outta 10 or more, um, adults struggle to read, fill out a basic form. Um, and in Imperial County it’s actually, uh, one outta two.

ZAIDEE:

My doctor just gave me an inhaler. I don’t know what’s going on. Okay. Um, okay. So what’s at stake here, Emma?

EMMA:

A big part of why I was interested in this project in the first place is that, um, you know, adults who struggle to do very basic reading, um, they can face all sorts of problems in their life. So they will have trouble getting jobs and earning a decent living. Um, they’ll, they’ll be less connected to their community. They’ll, and you know, one thing that I really heard over and over, um, not just from some of the adults that I spoke with, but um, you know, people in the community and in the healthcare community that, that healthcare is something that’s really at stake.

EMMA:

You meant. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. So I spoke with a doctor who works at, um, community clinics in the Central Valley, and she sees patients who struggle to read really in any language. Um, and she said that, you know, if someone doesn’t know how to read, then they’re not gonna be able to, you can’t send them home with directions. You can’t send ’em home with pamphlets. Um, prescription medicines are a huge issue. You might not be able to follow what the directions are. Um, and so the most dramatic example that she gave me is that, um, that someone …

EMMA:

Okay. . Yeah. So, this person, um, did not follow the directions on their prescription because they couldn’t read and, um, they took too many blood thinners that caused their stomach to bleed and they ended up in the emergency room because of that.

ZAIDEE:

So who is working to address this problem, Emma?

EMMA:

Yes, there are. So, um, the, the group that’s targeting this problem the most would be, um, the adult schools. So, um, you know, these are, there’s both an adult school system that’s connected to K 12 schools. Um, and then also there’s some adult classes within community colleges. Um, but the bulk of students who, you know, need to learn more literacy or even practice their citizenship, and sometimes those things are connected because, uh, you know, going for your citizenship you need to, um, speak English. But, um, um, sorry. , I lost my train of thought. Um, yeah, so, okay. The adults, Mm-Hmm. , the adults, adult schools. Um, and also libraries are a place where there are volunteers who will work with, um, adults, often one-on-one. Um, these are, yeah, these are volunteers who give their time to help people out. Um, that’s about 10,000 Californians a year. And, you know, finally there’s community-based groups and nonprofits that also, um, do some really good work in this field.

ZAIDEE:

So one of the things that really stands out in your story is that one of the ideas of one of the ways to reach is that one of the ways to reach, um, sorry. one of the ways to reach adults who have low literacy and, and help them learn to read and write is, um, by targeting them wherever they are, can you at, you know, at their children’s school or where, where they work? Can you tell us more about that?

EMMA:

Yeah. Um, you know, so one of the main issues is that we do have these adult schools. We do have these programs, but, um, you know, a lot of the people that I spoke with, they, they have jobs, they’re raising children, they’re very busy. Um, this is kind of low on their priority list, even though they know that it would make a big difference for them.

EMMA:

Yeah. Okay. Um, The Migration Policy Institute looked at the data and found that immigrants were much more likely to be working than, um, other Americans or even other immigrants in other countries. So, um, the Migration Institute did an analysis of some of this literacy data, and they, they noticed that immigrants in the United States are much more likely to be working than natives, and also that immigrants in other countries, which is kind of interesting. And so their recommendation was to, um, to increase, increase work-based programs. So this is bringing these, um, literacy and other kind of adult education skills into the workplace.

So the idea is to reach, um, reach these adults in their workplace. So first of all, they’re already there. Um, and second of all, immigrants have all sorts of different needs. And so depending on the field that they work in, they’re gonna need different kinds of language. And so, you know, making sure that they have targeted, um, language literacy development, um, they said that’s particularly important. And, you know, this is something that I heard even from people in adult schools. They said, you know, I’m teaching, um, English language skills to, um, you know, people who don’t have a fifth grade education. And then I’m also teaching it to like, these professors who have a PhD. Um, and so trying to, you know, trying to teach all those people in one class can be pretty tricky. So actually reaching people at their workplace means that they’re gonna get exactly what they need for the kind of job that they have and, and, you know, it can also work around their schedule.

One organization that offers this kind of classes in the workplace is a nonprofit called the Building Skills Partnership. Marcelina Chamu, the janitor we heard from earlier, found out about them through her union, SEIU United Service Workers West.

MARCELINA:

Para mí fue muy de mucha ayuda porque yo estudié clases para la ciudadanía, estoy estudiando inglés aún, he recibido ayuda con mis taxes, este he recibido ayuda con las. Eso es para nutrición también porque mi esposo diabético y he tomado clases de nutrición.

ZAIDEE:

Marcelina has taken a whole range of classes now: English courses, tax preparation, nutrition courses to help her and her husband who has diabetes. And citizenship classes.

And thanks to those classes, she was able to fulfill one of her biggest goals.

MARCELINA:
Desde que yo tomé mi residencia, yo me. Me. Me hice una promesa a mí mismo que yo iba a buscar por todos los medios, por todos los métodos de hacerme un día ciudadana de este país [FADE UNDER HERE… ] y gracias a Dios y había, lo logré. Porque he recibido la ayuda con ellos, que pues me me dio mas animo a seguir adelante porque ese era mi sueño.

ZAIDEE:

[Translating] She says, I made a promise to myself that I would find a way to one day become a citizen of this country. And thank God, she says, I did get that help. That was my dream.

Building Skills Partnership estimates that it reaches 5,500 workers and community members each year through in-person classes, and another 20,000 through online classes throughout the state.

Emma, it’s interesting to me that the Migration Policy Institute recommends these  kinds of adult literacy classes not just in the workplace, but also at TK-12 schools. I actually, um, wrote about a program here in Oakland where they, they talk with where they do, where they teach re um, sorry, where they teach English literacy to, um, parents at the same school where their kids are. So they drop the kids off in the morning and then they have a classroom that is just for the parents.

EMMA:

Yeah. That’s another, um, recommendation that I’ve heard as well. And especially with, um, you know, community schools becoming more prominent in the state. That’s, um, that’s one area that, um, that, you know, a lot of people are talking about. Um, and, and there’s a big connection between, um, a parent’s literacy and their children’s literacy. So, um, you know, teaching the parent is like teaching the child as well.

ZAIDEE:

So you wrote that these adult literacy classes face big funding challenges. In fact you write that adult schools run on dust?

EMMA:

Yeah, so, um, when you look at the, especially the, the per person funding. In the, um, the school year, 21, 22, um, adult schools spent about $1,200 per student. Um, and that’s, that’s extremely low. So this is counting all the adults who are learning at a K 12 adult school or, um, or a community college. Um, and you know, it, I do wanna just say this , it’s hard to compare it to the per pupil funding in the K 12 system because adults are coming in and out. Um, they don’t, it’s not like they’re in a system that they stay in for a set amount of time. So that’s a caveat.

ZAIDEE:

But so there, everyone agrees there. Isn’t that it, that isn’t, everyone seems to agree that that isn’t much funding. Yeah. Do they need more?

EMMA:

Yeah. John Werner, who I, um, spoke to and he’s the, um, head of Sequoia adults, oh God, Sequoia adult Consortium. Um, and he said that there actually are some adult schools that run, um, based on the same kind of funding that the K 12 system gets, um, which is about over $20,000, give or take, depending on the year. Um, and he said that they’re just able to provide so many services. I mean, one that’s really obvious is childcare. Um, adults, a lot of these adults have children and it’s really hard for them to take a class if they don’t have someone who can look after the little ones. That’s gonna be my next story is on just adult schools .

ZAIDEE:

Yeah, I think that’s all. Yeah. Um, why don’t I just ask you, uh, just to sort of end, um, what do you, you know, what do you want people to take away from this? Emma? What do you think is the big, or what did you learn from the story that you think people should learn, that you hope other people learn from it as well?

EMMA:

You know, the thing that I heard over and over again from the people that I was interviewing was they just wish people knew what was going on. Um, this is a population that in some ways can be invisible and not paid attention to not heard from, um, you know, adult schools that’s not, you’re not getting adult school coverage of graduation the same way that you do the K 12 system. Or it’s, um, I think there’s a sense that it kind of gets lost in the shuffle a little bit. And, and yet it is so important for all those reasons that I mentioned, um, just for people’s very livelihoods, ability to get a job, um, even connect with their children and grandchildren.

Marcelina Chamu says after taking more English classes, she has become more confident going to the grocery store and the doctor’s office.

MARCELINA:

Ya trato de de hablarlo más con los doctores o con la las las enfermeras que me atienden y pues siento que que ya me entienden y yo los entiendo y aún por eso eso más me motiva a seguir adelante estudiando.

ZAIDEE:

[Translating] “I try to talk more with the doctors and nurses, and I feel like they understand me now, and I understand them,” she says. That’s what motivates her to continue studying.

She says her grandchildren are surprised at how much she’s learned.

MARCELINA:

A veces que me oyen, que yo ando en la tienda o así que pues que yo hablo así, me dicen abuelita y luego nos dices tú que no sabes inglés? Le dije pues hija, no, no es que lo sepas, sino es que yo intento que me entiendan y y entenderle yo porque qué más hago?

ZAIDEE:

[Translating] “Sometimes they hear me talking in the grocery store, and they say, Grandma, you said you didn’t speak English!” she says. And she tells them, well I don’t, but I have to try.

MARCELINA:

Porque pues uno no, no lo no, no lo sabe uno bien, pero pues yo deseo aprenderlo bien y por eso es que yo sigo adelante con las clases.

ZAIDEE:

She doesn’t yet know English well, she says, but she wants to get better and better . So as long as there are classes available, she’ll continue taking them.

MARCELINA:

Que mientras estén las clases ahí en pues yo voy a continuar.

 

CREDITS:

 

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Education Beat: Getting to the heart of California schools. A production of EdSource. You can find links to Emma’s story in our podcast notes and at EdSource dot org. Our producer is Coby McDonald. Special thanks to our guests Marcelina Chamu and reporter Emma Gallegos. Our CEO is Anne Vasquez. Our managing editor is Adam Eisenberg. Our theme music is from Blue Dot Sessions. This episode was brought to you by the James B. McClatchy Foundation and the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 Data Fellowship.

I’m Zaidee Stavely. Join us next week. And subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.