ELL News Headlines

What are practical ways to implement restorative practices? Today, Erika Niles, Gina Laura Gullo, Cheryl Staats, Kelly Capatosto, Ricky Robertson, Victoria Romero, and Dr. Laura Greenstein share their recommendations.

Jason Reynolds is the seventh national ambassador for Young People's Literature. Reynolds will spend his two-year term traveling the country getting young people to tell their stories.

State and local officials cannot block refugee admissions in their jurisdictions, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, finding the Trump administration's new refu­gee policy is likely "unlawful" and "does not appear to serve the overall public interest."

School districts across the country are offering students a broad array of target languages to learn in dual-language programs across the country. Schools now offer dual-language education in 18 languages, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Education. The report from the office of English language acquisition lists the number of states that offered programs in each language during the 2016-17 school year.

The landmark Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico lawsuit ordered the state to direct more resources to public schools. Part of that mandate calls for culturally relevant curriculum and more support for students learning English as a second language. Teachers and administrators at El Camino Real Academy in Santa Fe say the school's dual-language curriculum accomplishes both.

Meghanlata Gupta, an undergraduate at Yale University, is the founder of Indigenizing the News, a newsletter focused on Native issues. She writes, "My mother’s side of the family never immigrated to North America — they’ve always been here. While many people can trace their family history back to a great-great-great-great grandfather who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean in search of the famed “American Dream,” my ancestors inhabited the lands and waters in the Great Lakes region since the beginning of time itself. We are Anishinaabe peoples, also known as Ojibwe or Chippewa. My tribal nation, commonly known as the Soo Tribe, holds a sovereign-to-sovereign relationship with the United States government."

In this column, award-winning ESOL teacher Justin Minkel writes, "The first thing I notice when I walk into an elementary school classroom is how much student work is posted on the walls. Are there plenty of imaginative stories, detailed drawings, and vibrant paintings made by the hands of children? Or is the majority of wall space dedicated to anchor charts and inspirational posters made by adults?"

Rhode Island's smallest city has experienced such an influx of new students that the district is asking for $1 million in emergency funds to keep the schools afloat. Four hundred new students, many of them from Guatemala, have arrived here since last spring, when the Rhode Island Department of Education established the district's fiscal 2020 school budget. In fact, a new student arrives in Central Falls approximately every other day, according to Interim Supt. Stephanie Downey Toledo.

It can be hard to stay relevant in the ever-changing world of children's entertainment, but Highlights For Children magazine has lasted for generations by sticking to the formula of mixing fun with learning.

Researchers rely on district-level English-learner data to craft reports and propose policy on the state and national level. The problem is that states may not always report the data the same way—and sometimes it goes missing.