ELL News Headlines

Currently only one in four Illinois children shows up to kindergarten prepared, according to results of a state kindergarten readiness assessment. One reason: While the state has invested in quality programs, they reach too few children. A September analysis by the group Illinois Action for Children illustrated vast inequities in how preschool seats are distributed. Some communities have no seats for children from low-income families, while others have an overabundance. How Illinois can fortify its system, which is recognized nationally for its high quality but only reimburses centers between $24 and $32 a day to care for preschoolers, is one of the questions facing the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. 

As Denecia and her 9-year-old daughter Elianna browse through the rows of books in this special branch of the Queens Library, both begin to beam. She’s actually kind of "old school" when it comes to books, Denecia says. Ever since she was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, she found the local library a special place, an escape both from digital noise and some of the other tumult in her life. A combination of factors, including the loss of her job and the costs of finding child care, left Denecia and her two children, including her 6-year-old Elise, without a home over a year ago. Today the Queens mobile library has come to her, parking outside the family shelter where she and 254 other families now live.

The DACA program has not only provided many long-term economic, educational and other benefits to the more than 800,000 young immigrants who are working and studying in the U.S. without fear of deportation, but it has also bolstered the nation's workforce and contributed billions of dollars to the economy, a study released Thursday found.

November marks the 50th anniversary of public television's "Sesame Street," a cultural landmark widely praised for its approach to children's programming. But beyond the songs and fun, "Sesame Street" does some serious work for those in need, providing special support and guidance for military families and addressing topics like autism and addiction. Hari Sreenivasan reports.

There's a new book your kids are going to love, and it will have them (and you!) humming one of the quintessential songs of childhood. The book, Sunny Day: A Celebration of the Sesame Street Theme Song, commemorates "Sunny Day," the much-loved tune that opens each episode of the long-running Sesame Street program, and it was created in celebration of the show's 50th anniversary.

Bob Johnson was one of the four original human cast members of "Sesame Street," and a fixture on the show for 45 of its 50 years. "Beyond question, 'Sesame Street' was the number one thing of my life," said McGrath, who will be appearing on "Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration" at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, on HBO, the show's home since 2016, and on PBS on Nov. 17.

Latino students are the largest ethnic group in U.S. public schools, representing 25 percent of the overall population. Yet, Latinos make up only 9 percent of the nation's teaching corps. While demographic gaps exist between all nonwhite student populations and teachers, the gap for Latinos is the largest, a new report from New America's Education Policy Program shows. Despite the fact the number of K-12 Latino teachers has more than quadrupled over the last three decades, the growth has not kept pace with the rise in student population.

Educator Diane Davis works in a French-immersion elementary school in metro Atlanta. Starting in kindergarten, students receive core content instruction in French for half of their day. In this guest column, Davis touts the benefits of such immersion programs.

By her account, by the time she was in her late 20s about 10 years ago, Mechal Renee Roe had grown used to almost daily questions lobbed at her and stares cast at her by coworkers. But at the World Natural Hair Show in College Park, GA, Roe found herself surrounded by black women like herself with different natural hairstyles — from 'fro hawks to Bantu knots — all of them sampling grooming products made specifically for natural black hair. That's when the seeds for Roe's new children's picture book, "Happy Hair," were planted. Originally self-published in 2014, Random House picked up the book a year ago and gave it national release in October.

Thousands of Californians are being forced from their homes and hundreds of thousands more are without power as wildfires spread rapidly across the state, fueled by dry, windy conditions. Overshadowed by the threats to lives and landmarks and property, the fires are also disrupting things like local economies, the delivery of social services and education, with students increasingly missing more class time as a result.