ELL News Headlines

Doctors are speaking out against the Trump administration's plans to stop separating immigrant families by instead detaining children with their parents. That approach, top pediatricians warned Wednesday, replaces one inhumane policy with another. "It puts these kids at risk for abnormal development," said Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"A follow-up to Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns: A Muslim Book of Colors, by the same team, this appealing and well-designed picture book has great potential for cross-curricular use. Khan blends geometry terms (arch, hexagon, cone) and vocabulary about Islam in gentle couplets rich with sensory detail. Amini's vividly colored spreads use patterns and architectural elements from classical Islamic art, enlivened with whimsical additions, such as a tabby cat that appears on several pages."

The 5-year-old and his family had traveled thousands of miles to escape. When they finally arrived on American soil, free from the marauders who had burned their house to the ground, the boy was placed in a holding pen with his brother and sisters, while immigration officials decided their fate. From this story, a classic piece of music emerged. The family, fleeing religious persecution in Russia in 1893, was soon reunited and allowed to enter the country. And that little boy, born Israel Beilin, would grow up to become Irving Berlin. Twenty-five years after emigrating, the same year he became an American citizen, he composed "God Bless America."

The U.S. Department of Education is delaying, by two years, implementation of a rule that would require states to take a closer look at how school districts identify and serve minority students with disabilities.

Alvin Irby wears many hats. He is a stand-up comedian, a children's book author, a former kindergarten teacher, the founder of Barbershop Books and, above all, a dynamo. He speaks loudly, even when answering questions in a quiet office that's been emptied by the snow. His nonprofit has put a curated list of 15 books — all picked by kids — in dozens of barbershops, in predominantly black neighborhoods, across the country. And that's not counting the many barbers who have heard his story and done something similar on their own.

Even as President Trump and his administration promise to reunite families separated by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S. border, a similar crisis continues unabated within the country's interior, where children are separated from their undocumented parents with little scrutiny and increasing frequency. In the past few months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has carried out the three biggest workplace immigration raids of the past decade, including one on June 5 at a nursery in rural Ohio, where 114 gardeners, florists and other workers were detained and put into court proceedings for deportation. Many of them had lived for several years in a Norwalk trailer park of 74 homes known as Little Mexico, where now aid workers estimate that more than 90 children are missing one parent and at least 20 are left with no parent at all. One of them is Alex, an American citizen like most children in the trailer park, with a wardrobe of Cleveland Cavaliers T-shirts and frosted tips dyed orange at the barbershop inside Walmart.

Days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against public-employee unions in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31, there are many questions about what this will mean for the future of teachers' unions.  Bradley Marianno, an assistant professor of educational policy and leadership at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, was the co-author of a recent analysis that studied teachers' unions in Michigan and Wisconsin after those states passed right-to-work laws prohibiting agency fees. Education Week spoke to Marianno about the consequences of the Janus decision, and what we can expect to see with teachers' unions in the months and years ahead.

As temperatures crept toward 90 degrees, tens of thousands of protesters shuffled across the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon to denounce the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy. Crowds gathered in lower Manhattan before marching over the East River to Cadman Plaza, not far from the federal courthouse for the End Family Separation NYC Rally and March. It was one of more than 600 demonstrations taking place this weekend, from the nation's capital to Appalachia. Thousands took to the streets to demand the end of the separation of immigrant children from their families, as well as implore voters to turn out for this year’s midterm elections.

"The Gorilla Foundation is sad to announce the passing of our beloved Koko," the research center says, informing the world about the death of a gorilla who fascinated and elated millions of people with her facility for language, including Fred Rogers when they met in this TV episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

Many state-funded preschools have done little to ensure that staff have the training and skills to support children from families in which languages other than English are spoken, a report from the National Institute on Early Education Research has found.