ELL News Headlines

Names are one of the topics covered in We’re Gonna Keep on Talking, which elementary teacher Jennifer Orr co-authored with Philadelphia educator Matthew R. Kay. The book guides educators through how to foster meaningful conversations about race with elementary school students.

Missouri has become the latest state to face strong pushback against plans to promote social-emotional learning in its classrooms. The state was on track to adopt standards outlining the interpersonal, responsible decisionmaking, and problem-solving skills it expected K-12 students to master. But state education officials have decided to scale back and redefine the proposed social-emotional learning standards as a non-binding, optional framework after nearly 2,000 public comments on the plan revealed substantial confusion and concerns surrounding SEL.

The number of homeless students attending New York City schools reached a record high last year after thousands of asylum-seeking families entered the city’s shelter system, a new analysis shows.

Schools are obligated to provide interpretation services for families of English learners, but most don't. Now there’s some momentum to change that.

Meg Medina, the current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, has worked with the Literary Initiatives Office of the Library of Congress to create a project called Cuéntame!: Let’s Talk Books. The idea at the heart of Cuéntame — which means "tell me," or, literally, "story me" in Spanish — is that talking about books is something that children should feel totally at ease doing, just as they'd talk about any other topic with their friends, family and teachers. Too often in school, talking about books is reserved for "book reports" or presentations.

At Clinton Hill Early Learning Center (opens in a new window) in the South Ward, everything is designed with the city's youngest children in mind. Many of the wall decorations are just 2 feet off the ground — the perfect view for infants and toddlers. The lobby overflows with plants and sunlight, the classrooms are filled with color, and the courtyard has climbing structures, toys, and, most importantly, padded flooring. Clinton Hill Early Learning Center offers one solution for closing gaps in financing early childhood education. The center is funded by the Maher Charitable Foundation, a philanthropy (opens in a new window) that engages in early childhood education projects and policy efforts and has previously funded the expansion of Newark early learning facilities.

Simona Goldin is a research associate professor in the University of North Carolina's department of public policy and at the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC). Her research focuses on trauma-informed practice and how to transform the preparation of beginning teachers to teach in more racially just and equitable ways. She shares three lessons on recovering after an active shooter shook her campus.

Share these titles featuring Indigenous characters with young children, tweens, and teens all year long!

More than a decade after it was phased out in most schools, elementary school students in California will begin learning cursive writing next year — thanks to a new law.

Scholastic is reversing course, saying it will no longer separate diverse stories for school book fairs after weeks of mounting backlash from educators and authors. The educational company, which both publishes and distributes books, waded into hot water last month after it confirmed that it was changing its policy for its middle school book fair offerings. It said it was putting most of the titles dealing with race, gender and sexuality into their own collection, and allowing schools to decide whether to order it, as they would with any display.