ELL News Headlines

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.

For October, we introduce you to a kindergarten teacher in Arlington who is going above and beyond to make sure her students get a quality education. For more than 20 years, Mrs. Silvia Campos-Ortiz has made it her goal to give her young students she calls her children the tools they need for a better future. Campos-Ortiz says she has a special bond with each one of her kindergartners. She teaches them English as a second language at Veda Knox Elementary in Arlington. She says kindergarten is the base of their learning foundation.

It generally takes until preschool age for children to understand that a word like "four" represents a set, but new research from Johns Hopkins University suggests infants understand the concept of counting years earlier.

Native Americans made fry bread by turning government rations turned into a delicious, warm food that brings people together. Fry bread is the subject of a new children's book.

In Kissimmee, Florida, a team of students, who are English Language Learners (ELLs) are writing their coming to America stories. Even students who were born and raised in America have stories of struggles, hardships and triumphs that can serve as inspiration for others. As students embark on the journey of writing and publishing their stories in a book, other new, incoming students can see themselves in the stories and can learn to write their own coming to America stories. 

A $30,000 grant from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is continuing to fund a scholarship program to help Walla Walla Public Schools' classified staff and high school seniors pursue careers in bilingual education.

The availability of resources for immigrants is very limited, especially in Missouri. Since 2017, data shows that four percent of the state's residents are immigrants and this community continues to grow. As this rate increases, the children of incoming immigrants are faced with having to assimilate into the US in order to thrive in this new environment. One program that recognizes this issue has been offering ESL services to the immigrant community since 2000 in Columbia, Missouri.