ELL News Headlines

As the Penn State College of Education's relationship with the community of Hazleton and its school district continues to expand, so do opportunities for the city's English learners. The U.S. Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition awarded Penn State a five-year, $2.1 million grant that is intended, among other things, to foster ambitious science and language teaching practices in Hazleton elementary classrooms that contribute to English learners' academic success.

School talk today is generally around rigorous content and 21^st-century skills and how we can measure those to make schools accountable. There is, however, a much more powerful, if subtle, set of factors that makes going to school worthwhile for both students and teachers. Any teacher-student relationship involves a whole cluster of things going on: trust, motivation, purpose, persistence, curiosity.  Humor--and joy. Multiply that by 30--or 150--students every day.

At ReNEW Cultural Arts Academy, students put their multiplication tables to song, while eighth graders use the musical "Hamilton" to study debate. The public charter school's curriculum is a product of a federal effort to use arts education to boost achievement in the nation's lowest performing schools. Jeffrey Brown reports.

Since 2014, the hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks has grown into the We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) nonprofit organization supporting diversity in children's literature with special events, panel discussions, writing contests, grant awards, mentorships, resources for teachers and librarians, and now, its first book — "Flying Lessons & Other Stories," a middle-grade anthology for children ages 8 to 12 released this week by Crown Books for Young Readers. The anthology features award-winning authors Kwame Alexander, Soman Chainani, Matt de la Peña, Tim Federle, Grace Lin, Meg Medina, Tim Tingle, and Jacqueline Woodson.

Now that voters have passed Proposition 58, school districts and principals across the state are trying to figure out whether to grow bilingual education programs – and if so, how. Three experts talk about what should happen next.

Proposition 58, the successful ballot initiative to overturn bilingual education limits in California, goes into effect in July of this year. Among other things, schools no longer will be required to have parents sign a waiver for their kids to enroll in bilingual programs and district officials will no longer be limited to the amount of native language instructors use to help English learners.  The increasing role of parents in this policy change comes as state education leaders have given parents a greater role in school district policy by building parent input into school district budgeting reforms known as Local Control Funding Formula.

Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education hasn't answered all the questions or allayed concerns from civil rights and Latino advocacy groups about how the Every Student Succeeds Act will alter education for the nation's nearly 5 million English-language learners.

Ali Saeed is a part of the 41 percent of seniors at Stevenson High School in Illinois whose parents are college educated but attended universities outside the U.S., according to a school survey. The large percentage of students in the Class of 2017 recently has caught the attention of Stevenson educators, who were surprised to find that more and more students at the Lincolnshire-based high school are coming from families with that specific background. Patty Martin, assistant director of student services at Stevenson, said that school officials were startled to find that a little less than half of the Class of 2017 had parents who attended a university in another nation. "We thought maybe it was 10 percent," she said.

DMACC English as a Second Language teacher Vidal Spaine helps immigrants from around the world assimilate in Des Moines, Iowa through ESL classes. He's grateful for the help he received in much the same way that helped pave his success in this country.