ELL News Headlines

House Democrats on Tuesday reintroduced the latest version of their nearly two-decades-long but elusive DREAM Act legislative effort to put millions of young undocumented immigrants and immigrants with temporary protections on a pathway to U.S. citizenship. 

Kentucky's Warren County Public Schools constantly battles to find enough qualified teachers for English learner students, and enrollment is showing no signs of slowing.

Bastianich grew up eating farm-to-table meals with her Italian family. After they fled Europe as refugees, she drew on those meals in opening her first restaurant.

Federal prosecutors charged 33 parents, along with two SAT/ACT administrators, an exam proctor, nine coaches and three organizers with involvement in a college admissions fraud scheme on Tuesday.

Since the late 2000s, Arizona has required English language learners to spend hours of their school day, every day, segregated from the rest of the student body in what has come to be known as the English-only language development block. Last Thursday, however, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill that eliminates the four-hour block model and gives districts far more autonomy in how they instruct ELL students in Arizona's public schools. Patricia Sandoval-Taylor, the director of language acquisition services in the Tucson Unified School District, said that quashing the four-hour block, specifically, has been a top lobbying priority for the district in the last few years because the block severely hindered high school ELL students' ability to achieve academically and graduate on time. Under the previous block model, students could not earn content credit and would end up failing or dropping out of school because they were so far behind on credits.

The Baltimore City Public Schools, the School District of Palm Beach County in Florida, and the School District of Philadelphia are among those working to revamp curriculum materials so they are more relevant to the diverse groups of students in their schools, according to a report released Thursday by Chiefs for Change.

Janna Akkerman, Marianne Davidson and Angela Thoen are EL teachers in Austin. In this editorial, they write, "Each of our students is so much more than their identified LEP (Limited English Proficiency) status. You might ask, well what do they bring to the table? They bring compassion and they bring perseverance. Many have been through unfathomable hardship, poverty, war, famine and grief, and yet they strive for a better life. These students understand the value of education and show respect for teachers, materials and peers. They bring a variety of cultures, world-outlooks, prior education experiences and learning styles, and yet they also yearn for connections and to belong."

Paige Classey Przybylski is in her second year as the library media specialist at Harborside Middle School in Milford, Conn. In this article, she writes, "graphic novels are an excellent resource for struggling readers and English-language learners. By providing students with the graphic novel version of a scene or chapter from a text-based novel prior to reading, students will have a general understanding of plot beforehand, and can focus on details. Alternatively, providing the graphic chapter after reading the text-based novel also supports comprehension. Students can reflect on their own learning: What had they missed or misunderstood before that became clear? What important plot points or ideas from the text have been reinforced in the graphic novel?"

When Yancarlos Gonzalez enrolled in kindergarten at Wedgeworth Elementary, he barely knew any English. He is instructed through the Dual Language Enrichment program and shined at the recently held district Spanish Spelling Bee, ultimately winning first place.

The ability to understand and create media is essential—for teachers and students alike. PBS and San Francisco Bay Area public media station KQED have partnered toward that goal, creating a free certification program in media literacy for PreK-12 educators.