ELL News Headlines

Books For Africa has sent more than 41 million books over the last 30 years to 53 different countries, where students say the variety of titles have made them enthusiastic readers. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

"Amal is an inquisitive young girl living with her family in a Punjabi village in rural Pakistan. Inspired by her favorite teacher, Amal dreams of becoming an educator. However, the tween has to stay home to run the household while her mother recovers from postpartum depression. Her ambitions fade away completely, though, after an accident involving the car of the wealthy Jawad Sahib, and she becomes a servant in Sahib's house to pay off her family's debts. Amal discovers the strength to overcome her harrowing circumstances, while making new friends and finding comfort in books and learning. What follows is Amal’s social awakening…A strong choice for all middle grade shelves, especially where readers are seeking stories about young girls in non-Western countries overcoming adversity."

After a raid on Tuesday that led to the arrest of 114 undocumented employees — rounded up by more than 100 immigration agents, using dogs and helicopters — at an Ohio landscaping company, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reported some workers have been released for "humanitarian reasons." Meanwhile, immigrant rights advocates said minors and U.S.-born workers caught up in the sting were released after nearly 12 hours in detention. On Wednesday ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls told NPR, some of those who were picked up had been released for a variety of humanitarian reasons, "including health, or primary care for a minor child."

Despite the spread of nearsightedness among U.S. schoolchildren, nearly 1 in 3 has not had a vision screening in at least two years, according to a new Education Week Research Center analysis of federal data, and research suggests several ways schools may help reduce children's risk of bad eyesight.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday walked back controversial remarks she made to Congress two weeks ago, clarifying in a Senate hearing that she does not think teachers and principals can report students to immigration authorities. On Tuesday, DeVos reversed course after a lengthy exchange with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) during a hearing of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. Murphy pressed DeVos to clarify her remarks five times before she definitively answered that she did not think that federal law allowed principals or teachers to call ICE on students.

A Washington-based think tank wants to provide a road map to help parents, policymakers, and the public better understand the ins-and-outs of English-language-learner education. The Migration Policy Institute's "A Guide to Finding and Understanding English Learner Data" explores what type of data that school systems, states, and the federal government collect on English-learners and how the information is used—and how it shouldn't be used.

A swarm of immigration agents arrested more than 100 workers at an Ohio gardening and landscaping company Tuesday morning, one of the largest of several recent workplace raids carried out as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration enforcement. Dozens of the workers' children were left stranded at day-care centers and with babysitters, local activists wrote on social media.

The New York Times has a new education supplement, called Learning, and The Hechinger Report is collaborating with the Times to produce Bulletin Board, a collection of noteworthy ideas and trends in education that will appear on page 2 of the section, which will come out four times a year. The June issue's theme was "Challenges in Higher Education." Highlights from Bulletin Board follow.

Many states' plans for educating English-language learners under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act fall short of equity and send clear signals on how they value the educational progress of the students, an analysis by Achieve and UnidosUS finds.

A local immigrant inclusion initiative, All for All, is recruiting English as A Second Language teachers to participate in a year-long professional development program. ESL teachers have reported feeling isolated and overwhelmed as Pittsburgh’s immigrant and refugee population grows and diversifies. Organizers said ESL teachers in the region have limited access to training and opportunities to share best practices with other teachers at a time when the ELL population in the area is growing.