ELL News Headlines

On September 28, a powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, followed by a tsunami with waves up to 20 feet high. One week later, the death toll has risen to 1,581, and that number is expected to increase as more bodies are recovered. More than 66,000 houses have reportedly been damaged and at least 70,000 people are homeless. The situation remains particularly precarious for tens of thousands of child survivors, many of whom have been separated from their families. The longer a child is separated from her or his family, the more difficult it is to locate them and the more at risk a child is to violence, economic and sexual exploitation, abuse and potential trafficking.

In 1932, Eleanor Roosevelt's husband Franklin had just been elected president. In the throes of raising five children, Eleanor thought they should know "what their parents were up to" and "how it all worked," according to her granddaughter Nancy Ireland. "When You Grow Up to Vote: How Our Government Works for You," a civics book Eleanor wrote for young children that year, only came across Ireland's desk a year ago, even though she has spent three decades in charge of her grandmother's literary estate. "I was never given a copy of it by my parents, which amuses me," she told PBS NewsHour about the book's new reissue this month. The book, with revised text by Michelle Markel and illustrations by Grace Lin, explains to readers age 6-12 (and beyond) that we all have a stake in how our democracy is governed.

Despite the growing numbers of English-language learners in U.S. schools, their representation in gifted and talented programs continues to lag behind not only their native English-speaking peers, but also other underserved populations, including black and Hispanic students and children from low-income families.

A new study, published in the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), explores the costs of Dual Language Immersion programs and monolingual English programs in Portland Public Schools (PPS). The study aims to uncover differences in these programs spending over time and analyzes the processes by which these programs are connected with student achievement. Portland Public Schools (PPS) has a long history of supporting DLI and uses a lottery process for student admission into these programs. In 2012, PPS partnered with the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, RAND Corporation, and the American Councils for International Education to conduct a comprehensive study of their DLI programs, including academic impact and implementation.

Yolanda Corbett knows she would have to remain at home with her youngest child if he was not enrolled in preschool. She would lose her job as an administrative assistant at a nonprofit and would have to scramble in the evenings to find friends and relatives to watch her three children while she worked a night shift in retail. Full-priced day care, which can cost thousands of dollars a month, is not an option. But the District's public preschool program has enabled Corbett and thousands of other mothers with young children to enter the workforce, according to a study showing the nearly decade-old universal preschool initiative has benefited more than just the city’s youngest residents.

As the lack of air conditioning in many Baltimore public schools garnered recent media attention and finger-pointing from the governor and others, the school system's other maintenance needs — which affect teachers and students year-round — generate less outrage. There are aging roofs, rusted pipes, cracking steps and broken elevators — all piling up to a massive maintenance backlog that has swollen to nearly $3 billion. That’s more than double the district's annual operating budget.

More than 1,600 migrant children have been sent with little notice on late-night voyages to their new home: a barren tent city in West Texas, where they do not receive schooling and have limited access to legal representation. The Trump administration opened the facility because shelters that house migrant children have been overflowing. Here’s a look at what’s happening.

As educators encourage all students to get involved in upcoming elections, it’s important that we also recognize that not all students will participate in the same way. Teaching Tolerance reached out to Deyanira Aldana, education justice coordinator at United We Dream, who offered suggestions for educators who want to ensure they’re respecting the experiences and meeting the needs of undocumented students during voter education and registration events. Here are her recommendations.

A Trump administration proposal that would deny green cards or visas to many immigrants who legally use public benefits would not penalize families who use several programs — such as Head Start, the federal school lunch program, and services provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — that support children's education. While the proposal would not strip student eligibility tied to elementary and secondary public education and Head Start, an early-childhood program, the plan could still affect the children and their families.

Ron Ferguson, an economist at Harvard, has made a career out of studying the achievement gap — the well-documented learning gap that exists between kids of different races and socio-economic statuses. After seeing the disconnect between research and practice more clearly, he set out to translate the research into five simple and free ways adults can help their little ones. He calls his list the Boston Basics — and he's on a mission to introduce it to caretakers first in Boston and then across the country.