ELL News Headlines

Teachers don’t need to speak students’ home languages to use them as a resource for learning and creating a sense of belonging.

Dylan Lopez Contreras sat waiting for a copy of his class schedule in a sunny fourth-floor room of his Bronx high school as his counselor walked in wearing a “Free Dylan” button attached to the strap of his messenger bag. Dylan stood, and Hedin Bernard lifted Dylan’s more-than-6-foot frame off the floor in a tight bear hug.

Any child born on U.S. soil has a right to citizenship. It was established by the 14th Amendment in 1868, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme court 128 years ago. On Wednesday, the high court is set to hear oral arguments in a case that could narrow or even end birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara.

While shockwaves reverberated from sexual abuse allegations against César Chavez this month, Maria Rodriguez-Salazar, a San Francisco mariachi teacher, immediately thought of her students. They were putting the finishing touches on the public school district’s annual mariachi showcase planned for that Friday, and a song that 100 of the high schoolers had spent months preparing, “Corrido de las Heladas,” referenced the late leader of California’s farmworker movement. She and the program’s director quickly swapped his name for “campesinos,” which means “farmers,” and the show went on. But in the aftermath of The New York Times’ investigation revealing allegations about Chavez, teachers across the state are grappling with how to address his widely studied and once-revered legacy.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will consider the legality of one of the biggest items on President Donald Trump’s immigration-enforcement agenda — an executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil of immigrant parents who are undocumented or have lawful temporary status.

By rooting their professional development in learning science, this district helped teachers figure out which strategies to use more frequently, and which to retire.

This collection of poetry features works by a diverse group of poets for readers of different ages. Poets include Langston Hughes, Chitra Soundar, and Mia Wenjen, a contributor to Colorín Colorado.

Schools do not collect information on students’ immigration status due to a 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe, which granted undocumented students the constitutional right to a free, public education. Collecting such data could discourage undocumented families from enrolling in school, potentially undermining that right, advocates say. But Tennessee lawmakers, in an effort to challenge the Plyler decision, are debating legislation that would require schools to collect all students’ immigration information as soon as the 2026-27 school year.

Thousands of California students remain classified as English learners even after they reach proficiency in English, according to new research. Several studies suggest the state’s reclassification rules may be holding students in language support programs longer than necessary to their detriment.

As a child, Nora told me, she was immediately mislabeled as a special education student simply because she hadn’t yet learned English—a mistake her parents, trusting the system, didn’t feel comfortable questioning.