ELL News Headlines

Rhode Island lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban immigration enforcement agents from school grounds. The legislation would prohibit what it describes as "sensitive locations," including churches, hospitals, and courts, from granting access to federal agents who want to question or detain people suspected of living in the country illegally. Due for a hearing in the state House Judiciary Committee this week, the bill would create an exception if there's a warrant out for the person.

The town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, has opened a small public high school solely aimed at serving refugee and immigrant students. The idea is that by separating these students, their unique needs can be met so they will be more successful when they graduate and hopefully integrate into the community. But some experts question if this practice is a form of segregation and will maintain divisions within cities and towns. As part of The Hechinger Report’s new partnership with APM Reports, the national documentary and investigative unit of American Public Media, Hechinger Report staff writer Meredith Kolodner discusses what she found in reporting her story about challenges for refugee students and explains how Bowling Green’s model works on this week’s episode of the Educate podcast.

The New Mexico Public Education Department is giving parents, educators, advocates and tribal members more time to weigh in on a plan to reshape bilingual education programs after dozens of people voiced fears about what they see as a hastily proposed overhaul that would diminish students' options and threaten the future of dual-language learning. During an emotional public hearing Tuesday, many people, including some lawmakers, complained to a panel of state education officials that they had failed to consult with experts and stakeholders before deciding to eliminate two out of five program models, a move that will affect thousands of students. Several tribal officials even accused the education department of violating a state law by leaving Native communities out of the conversation.

Federal lawmakers have agreed to relatively small spending increases for Title I programs to districts and for special education, as part of a budget deal covering the rest of fiscal 2017 through the end of September. However, Title II grants for teacher development would be cut by $294 million, down to about $2.1 billion for the rest of fiscal 2017. The bill would also provide $400 million for the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant program, also known as Title IV of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Title IV is a block grant that districts can use for a wide range of programs, including health, safety, arts education, college readiness, and more.  Total U.S. Department of Education spending, including both discretionary and mandatory spending covering K-12 and other issues, would fall by $60 million from fiscal 2016, down to $71.6 billion.

At one high school in San Francisco, students speak 18 different languages, and while students can't totally communicate with one another, they're working hard to learn English and other cultures.

What makes a high-quality learning program effective not just for the child but the whole family? What else, besides a well-run pre-K, is essential to help families break out of intergenerational poverty? These are some of the key questions that an approach called "two-generation" programs are working to answer. There are many of these "two-gen" programs across the U.S. And while they differ in emphasis and detail, at their core they intentionally focus on ways to help both the child and parent. Usually this happens through targeted education and career training and other vital support such as health services, mentoring, and transportation.

Following up on a March report about the tax contributions made by the nation’s undocumented population, a new study released Tuesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said that young immigrants eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) contribute $2 billion in state and local taxes per year.

Kyle Redford is a 5th grade teacher at Marin Country Day School, a K-8 school in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also the education editor for the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. She writes, "Today, teaching global competency hardly seems novel. In fact, in a rapidly changing political and environmental landscape, focusing on the development of global competency seems urgent. The ability to imagine other perspectives and recognize one's own point of view is essential to understanding the current complexities related to immigration, environmental challenges, and racial and religious tensions at home and abroad. Additionally, studying any environmental, political, economic, or social system without recognizing its global interdependence seems limited."

According to a February 2016 report, "Between 2006 and 2013, the foreign-born population in Buffalo increased by 95 percent, and the most recent American Community Survey reports that the city is home to over 22,000 foreign-born residents." The influx of refugees and immigrants over the last decade reflects the city's pro-immigrant stance and has also made the Buffalo Public School System the most language diverse in the state. In fact, Buffalo is home to more language diversity than New York City — there are seven top languages in Buffalo schools, and more than 80 different languages in all.

School districts that fail to address the anxieties experienced by undocumented students as a result of federal immigration policies of the Trump administration may be violating their students' constitutional rights to a meaningful education, said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).