ELL News Headlines

The College Board this month changed the criteria for its National Recognition Program awards in a move that could shift tens of thousands of scholarship dollars from Black and Latino students to white students.

Colleges used the awards to recruit and offer scholarships to high-performing students from groups underrepresented in higher education. The award previously recognized academic achievement by students in five categories — Black, Hispanic, Native American, first-generation and those living in rural areas or small towns.

The racial categories have been eliminated.

Engaging in a back-and-forth with AI programs to refine the prompt and the output can help educators generate high-quality learning materials.

We visit an elementary school and a middle school in Austin, Texas, where students learn in Spanish and English. And we talk with a researcher about why Texas is so much farther ahead than California in bilingual education.

Politicians across the city rallied on Tuesday around a Bronx high school student who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after showing up for a routine immigration court hearing, calling for his immediate release. Dylan attended ELLIS Prep, which caters to older newly arrived immigrants, and remained determined to make it to college. He is the first known current New York City public school student detained by ICE during Trump’s second administration, as Chalkbeat first reported on Monday.

In March, Jennifer Gaffney, the superintendent of the Sackets Harbor Central school district in upstate New York, found herself advocating for the release of a district family, including young students, from immigration detention.

Students from low-income families and English learners are automatically awarded $500 for college or career training through a California program. Foster youth and homeless students get another $500 on top of that. But students, or their parents or guardians, have to claim the money. And many families are unaware of this program. How do you find out if you have money waiting for you? What is California doing to try to get more students to claim their accounts?

Educator Becca Katz writes "As AI dominates the education zeitgeist, I think it’s time to highlight an effective teaching tool as tried and true as a Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil: high-quality IRL relationships with students. I learned this first — and best — from my high school Spanish teacher, who, as the matriarch of the Spanish department, went simply by 'Señora.'"

As deportations have ramped up, some immigrant students across New York have been too afraid to attend class in person. In response, some school districts have turned to virtual learning, a move the state's Education Department is sanctioning, officials revealed last week.

Jackie Stephens' daughters Mercy and Hope both attended free child care and preschool through Head Start, and she says they’ve thrived. Jackie has gotten help herself through the program, with breastfeeding, nutritional advice and parenting. But now Jackie's worried about the possible elimination of all funding – $12.3 billion – for Head Start.