ELL News Headlines

After the recent earthquakes in Mexico, many schools have gotten the green light to reopen, but others are either damaged or near damaged buildings. That uncertainty is putting a lot of stress on parents and kids hoping to get back to normal.

When the Boston Public Schools opened the Margarita Muñiz Academy in 2012, it was a first-of-its kind dual-language high school meant to address issues faced by the city’s growing Hispanic population. At the time, Hispanic students were both the most likely to drop out of the city’s schools and the least likely to enroll in college when compared to black, white and Asian students. They still are, but as the academy enters its sixth full year, its student outcomes are drawing praise from a variety of sources, even while administrators note that steep challenges remain.

New York leaders have approved a new set of reading and math expectations for students, moving the state a step away from the Common Core State Standards, which are still in use in some 36 states. The new standards retain many of the common core's key features. They still emphasize learning how to read and analyze increasingly complex texts, and how to learn problem-solving algorithms and model with math. Educators are still parsing out precisely what some of the changes will mean for day-to-day instruction. Accompanying changes in curriculum, training, and testing are still months and years away.

All week, thousands of volunteers in Mexico have raced to the sites of collapsed buildings to save those trapped in the rubble following a series of powerful earthquakes. But after a disaster, one of the hardest things can just be getting around. As NPR's Nick Fountain reports in Mexico City, a low-tech solution is emerging  - kids on bikes.

There is a persistent shortage of dual-language teachers as the number of English language learners in American schools continues to rise. While a number of districts have looked to the short-term solution of hiring from Spanish-speaking countries like Spain and Mexico, two new papers from New America highlight recommendations for how to incubate bilingual talent stateside.

Earlier this summer, a study out of the University of Kansas looked at how babies received different languages in the womb, learning that, in utero, babies are attuned to the rhythm of their dominant language and mentally switch gears when they hear a foreign tongue. At the time, we hypothesized that, if they have such capabilities within the womb, babies could very well be prepared to handle two languages once they're out of it. That hypothesis has turned out to be quite true, as new research shows that bilingual babies are more than capable to process the languages their environments contain.

In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rican students wait in Ithaca for news of home. Cornell Puerto Rican Student Association's secretary Julia Pagán Andréu ’19, who calls San Juan home, was eager to hear news from her family — including her mother, father, sister, cousin and grandparents — who waited out last week's storm. "I'm just lucky that I've been able to get in touch with them,” she said. "I've seen my friends posting on Facebook asking for help in making sure their parents and loved ones are okay. So many people haven’t heard anything."

The passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December of 2015 was welcomed by many advocates and leaders as a huge step toward equitable education for English learners (ELs). These new benefits for ELs under ESSA include expanded requirements in reporting EL data, the possibility of increased funding for EL programs, and more nuanced school rating systems that take into account the English proficiency of students.

Monday marks the 60th anniversary of the controversial and historic desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some are celebrating the milestone. Others say more progress is needed.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking as the keynoter at a forum on civics education Thursday, stressed the importance of engaging young people of various backgrounds on the topic. "For me, civic education is the key to inspiring kids to want to become and stay involved in making a difference," Sotomayor told the Democracy at a Crossroads National Summit, a daylong event that drew scores of students, educators, policymakers, and others to the Newseum here.