ELL News Headlines

Qusay Hussein was playing volleyball with friends in the Iraqi city of Mosul Aug. 3, 2006, when a car pulled up. The driver looked him in the eyes and smiled. Then he detonated. On Thursday, the 29-year-old graduated from Austin Community College in Texas with an associate's degree. And he shared his remarkable story as the keynote speaker.

The funeral was about to begin, the first of 10 for the victims of the Santa Fe High School mass shooting, and the body of Sabika Sheikh was waiting at the mosque. Sabika, 17, dreamed of being a diplomat, of working to empower women. A Muslim exchange student from Karachi, Pakistan, she had come to the United States through a State Department-funded study program, excited to leave behind the dangers posed by extremists at home to experience a country that represented all that was possible.

University at Buffalo undergraduate students have been participating in a literacy training program at a Buffalo Public School. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley says they are teaching students from around the globe how to read in English.

When Jeremy Baugh took the helm as principal of School 107 three years ago, a school where 38% of students are English language learners, staff turnover was so high that about half the teachers were also new to the struggling elementary campus, he said. For his first two years, the trend continued — with several teachers leaving each summer. But when he surveyed his staff this year, Baugh got some unexpected news: about 97 percent of teachers said they plan on returning. "I was thrilled," he said. Staff say the change is heavily driven by a new teacher leadership program Indianapolis Public Schools has rolled out at 15 schools. Known as opportunity culture, some teachers are paid as much as $18,300 extra per year to oversee and support several classrooms. Educators at School 107, which is also known as Lew Wallace, say opportunity culture helps retain staff in two ways: It gives new teachers, who can often feel overwhelmed, support. And, it allows experienced teachers to take on more responsibility without leaving the classroom.

When Elycea Almodovar was searching for a college three years ago, she had just two criteria: It had to be diverse, and it had to have a record of actually graduating students like her — not just taking their money and letting them drop out. Salem State, the most diverse public university in her home state of Massachusetts, checked both boxes. Thanks to the efforts of schools like Salem State to recruit and support more Latino students, hire more diverse faculty and expand cultural programming, more Hispanics are going to college, and their graduation rates are rising. The bad news? This progress remains uneven. Nationwide, the proportion of Hispanics who graduate within six years is still 10 percentage points lower than the proportion of whites, according to the Education Department. The proportion who graduate in four is nearly 14 percentage points lower.

New York City has named 17 teachers winners of Big Apple Awards, a competitive prize that rewards 'exceptional success' in instruction, impact on student learning, and overall contributions to school communities. The winners were culled from a pool of more than 6,500 nominees. The winners include a special education teacher who had her students' artwork exhibited at MoMA, a dual language teacher who wrote her own Chinese literacy curriculum, and an early education teacher who uses an app to communicate with parents.

In November 2017, nearly two months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria successively devastated the island of Puerto Rico, officials at New York University offered a small group of Puerto Rican students admittance to the world-renowned institution for one semester, granting each of the 57 evacuees escape from the unbearable trauma of devastated life back on the island. One semester later, students who say that their stay at NYU has opened up a world of opportunity both personally and professionally, face returning to a multitude of insecure and troubling circumstances in Puerto Rico. Appeals to NYU leadership for a temporary program extension have proven unsuccessful.

Education and immigration advocates are pushing back against a Trump administration plan that would consolidate the federal office that helps guide education for millions of English-language-learner and immigrant students. Under the proposal, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would fold her department's office of English-language acquisition into the broader office for elementary and secondary education, according to advocacy groups briefed this week on the department's potential plan.

"Alva, along with coauthor Mills, narrates his experiences as a young child crossing the Mexican and U.S. border with his father…. Alva and Mills make this bilingual autobiographical story readily accessible through well-written and vivid text."

At age 5, Laura Jimenez left everything in her home country of Columbia behind to come to the United States with her mother. Thirteen years later she's using what she experienced as a child to help Venezuelan refugee students adjust to life away from their home country.