ELL News Headlines

Portland State University's College of Education will receive $3 million over five years to build on work from a previous partnership with Tigard Tualatin School District, which currently has 22 percent English Learner (EL) students. Dr. Julie Esparza Brown has spent the past 21 years of her career at Portland State University’s College of Education. In that time she has written or co-written grants that have allowed for 21 years of funding for bilingual/bicultural teachers in general and special education. DICE PLUSS was co-written with her colleagues and co-directors for Project DICE, Drs. Sheldon Loman and Amanda Sanford, who are associate professors in the school’s Special Education Department. 

Shelly McClanahan teaches middle school English as a Second Language near Nashville. She has been an ESL program coordinator in the U.S. and in international schools in Albania, South Korea, and England. She shares a few things she has learned by listening to, observing, and working with her students in this column.

These eight titles offer an intimate view of poverty and intersect with experiences of immigration, foster care, domestic violence, and homelessness.

At a long-delayed White House ceremony Monday celebrating educators around the country, President Joe Biden delivered two glass apples to the 2020 and 2021 National Teachers of the Year. Tabatha Rosproy, the 2020 honoree who taught preschool in Kansas, and Juliana Urtubey, the 2021 winner who teaches elementary special education in Las Vegas, were recognized alongside the other state teachers of the year.

The celebrated illustrator Jerry Pinkney has died. According to his long-time agent Sheldon Fogelman, Pinkney suffered a heart attack today; he was 81. Pinkney was a legend in the world of children's publishing. He won a Caldecott medal for his 2010 picture book The Lion and The Mouse; he also won five Coretta Scott King awards from the American Library Association and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Illustrators. Over the course of a nearly six-decade long career, he left his mark on over a hundred books, mostly for kids and teenagers, beginning with The Adventures of Spider: West African Folk Tales in 1964.

At a time when the use of diverse books is being challenged across the country, the Ezra Jack Keats (EJK) Foundation, in association with the Office Performing Arts + Film, presents a new documentary chronicling the diversity in children's literature. Tell Me Another Story describes the dedication and work of kid lit legends past and present who have brought authenticity and diversity to children's books. The film highlights creators, advocates, and librarians from W.E.B. Du Bois, Augusta Baker, Pura Belpré, and Ezra Jack Keats, to Pat Cummings, Marley Dias, Grace Lin, Christopher Myers, and Andrea Davis Pinkney. It also looks at the contributions made by the children's book awards that honor BIPOC creators and their stories, including the Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpré, and Ezra Jack Keats Awards.

Colleagues share an appreciation of NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who's leaving the network after 17 years. She was the first Latina to host a flagship program at the network.

Since the 1990s, a growing number of states have begun to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day – a holiday meant to honor the culture and history of the people living in the Americas both before and after Columbus’ arrival. In the following Q&A from The Conversation, Susan C. Faircloth, an enrolled member of the Coharie Tribe of North Carolina and professor of education at Colorado State University, explains the history of Indigenous Peoples Day and what it means to American education.

Meet Mauricio Peña, a Chicago reporter who has covered the Southwest Side and migrant farmworkers in Southern California. At Chalkbeat, Mauricio will be covering Chicago Public Schools. This personal essay is his introduction to Chalkbeat readers.

Last fall, the share of Native American students enrolled in college for the first time plummeted by almost a quarter, more than for any other racial or ethnic group, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In part because they make up less than 1 percent of all undergraduates, Native American students often have trouble finding professors, peers and mentors who understand them and can help them create a sense of community on campus. The pandemic made finding those connections even more difficult, said Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, the director of Native student services at the University of South Dakota, who is Oglala Lakota.