ELL News Headlines

Jazmin Mejia went straight from high school to what she thought was the perfect fit at Loyola University, a 30-minute drive from the Chicago neighborhood where she grew up. But Mejia was quickly overwhelmed on the North Side campus of nearly 17,000 students. A year later, she says college has become much more manageable. Mejia left Loyola's main campus in favor of the university’s Arrupe College, a two-year program in downtown Chicago that offers associate degrees. Taking smaller classes with instructors who interact more with students has been a game-changer, she said.

School Library Journal has proudly partnered with We Are Kid Lit Collective to share and promote the group’s 10th annual summer reading recommendations. In the next couple of weeks, SLJ will publish individual posts featuring their recommendations for picture books, transitional books, middle grade, and young adult titles. These early readers and chapter books will be just the thing for independent readers looking to meet new characters and engage with fun stories during the summer months.

The Department of Education has implemented a temporary fix to the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that will allow students with parents or guardians who lack a social security number to complete the form, under secretary of education James Kvaal told reporters at a press briefing Tuesday.

The new Free Application for Federal Student Aid promised to be an easy process for all students, especially those from immigrant families. For the first time, students with undocumented parents were told, they would be able to complete this form online.

English learners’ average English-language proficiency scores have remained in decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new assessment data from the WIDA consortium.

Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber majored in biology at college and planned to go to medical school. But a stop-gap job teaching science in Texas changed the course of her career. “I realized that while I liked medicine, I loved teaching,” she said. Today, Fuentes-Tauber teaches biology at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is passionate about increasing access to STEM education and empowering students to become change agents.

Today’s post is the latest in a series offering strategies to support older students experiencing reading challenges.

Skid Row is a playground for children again, despite homeless officials’ assurances that it wouldn’t happen. On Thursday morning, a 2-year-old rode a broom like a horse, running past a tent, where he lives with his parents. His 5-year-old friend, who lives in the tent next door, ran alongside him.

Native leaders say their young people are facing an acute mental health crisis and could particularly benefit from the kind of support a helpline run by and for Native youth would provide.

The landscape of child care assistance is about to change — and costs are finally coming down. At the end of February, President Joe Biden’s administration announced it was going to require every state to cap its co-payments so that families that receive subsidies pay no more than 7 percent of their income towards child care.