ELL News Headlines

What opportunities could a generation of students potentially lose when technology does the hard work for them? The celebrated author shares his thoughts on the hidden price of convenience.

Shrey Parikh felt his body shake from nerves and doubts every time he walked to the microphone at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the final test of a six-year competitive spelling career marked by triumph and heartbreak that he knew could end at any moment.

For the second consecutive year, Tennessee legislators failed in their efforts to limit undocumented students’ access to free, public education during the legislative session.

The effects of artificial intelligence on learning are still largely unclear. But a new NPR/Ipsos poll of K-12 teachers found that nearly 3-in-4 believe AI has bigger implications for education than past innovations like the internet or computers.

Most teachers use artificial intelligence, but relatively few — just 18 percent — have received any formal guidance on how to use it, according to a new poll from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup. "We are at a crossroads that will define the future of work and society," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said about technology during a public address this week. The federation, a 1.8 million-member union, is calling for a ban on screens for children through second grade, an end to student-facing AI in elementary school and rules to prevent students under 16 from using chatbots that behave like humans.

The Virginia Dual Language Educators Network (VADLEN) has named Nancy Davila, a Dual Language Immersion (DLI) teacher at Featherstone Elementary School, the Virginia Dual Language Immersion Teacher of the Year. With more than 30 years in education, Davila’s career reflects a deep and evolving dedication to language learning. She began as a monolingual classroom teacher before transitioning into language instruction as an elementary school foreign language teacher and later a secondary Spanish teacher. "I watched my kindergarten English learners shine because I was speaking their native language," Davila shared. "They no longer had to give up their language or identity to succeed. Instead, they were able to learn in their home language while also becoming proficient in a second language."

Editor's Note: We'd also like to extend our warmest congratulations to Ms. Davila, who taught one our own kiddos in kindergarten! She is a true testament to the teaching and the power of learning in two languages.

The attack on the largest mosque in San Diego Monday not only targeted a house of worship, but also the lower campus of Bright Horizon Academy. The Islamic Center of San Diego’s Imam, Taha Hassane, said as many as 140 children were within fifteen feet of the two gunmen during the shooting.

The Trump administration is using an obscure and typically routine federal budget procedure to withhold more than $2 billion for education that Congress approved in February. Most of these funds aren expected to go out to roughly 33 grant recipients later this year, and none of the department’s larger formula grants — including for Title programs and special education — is among the programs with missing or incomplete apportionments. Still, education advocates and federal budget experts have expressed concern that the lack of routine apportionments could foreshadow more funding disruption in the coming months. Impacted programs include Developing Hispanic-serving Institutions, Full-Service Community Schools, International and Foreign Language Education, Native Hawaiian Education Program, Alaska Native Ed., Ready to Learn, College Assistance Migrant Program, and Statewide Family Engagement Centers.

In a small office at a California university’s teacher education department, a single faculty member is doing the work of an entire department: recruiting bilingual candidates, writing bilingual curriculum, teaching classes bilingually, arranging bilingual student teaching placements in bilingual classrooms, and personally mentoring every bilingual student in the program. There is no staff. There is no dedicated budget line. This one person is a bilingual authorization program coordinator, and in most cases, that person’s commitment is the primary reason California’s bilingual teacher pipeline exists at all in that region.

English learners are significantly more likely to exit out of language services they no longer need when states automatically reclassify them, according to a new study.