ELL News Headlines

When Edgardo Ortiz boarded a flight from Puerto Rico to Florida on Oct. 7, with his wife and 9-year-old daughter, he didn’t have a concrete plan for what would happen next. At Orlando International Airport, the family ran into Bridget Williams, the chief of staff for the Orange County school system, who, along with other district staffers, had set up a table at the airport five days earlier to greet Puerto Rican evacuees. They were there to inform them about schooling options and social services available in the Orlando area. Williams perked up when she overheard that Ortiz and his wife taught physics and chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico. By the end of the encounter, Ortiz and his wife had job offers to teach science at one of the district's high schools. The couple may start teaching as early as next week.

They're called "kings." All freshmen. All young men of color. And all determined to upend the dominant narrative about young black men in Washington, D.C. Their public high school — the all-male Ron Brown College Prep — is designed specifically to meet their needs. And for many of the young men, their needs are profound. Two reporters, Education Week's Kavitha Cardoza and NPR's Cory Turner, spent hundreds of hours with teachers, students, and parents from the school's earliest days to the final bell. These three episodes tell the story of Ron Brown's first year.

Some 5,700 houses and structures have been destroyed and many more damaged by the blazes that barreled through Northern California last week. About 100,000 people were displaced, temporarily or permanently. It is still too early to know how many of them were immigrants, who are in the most precarious position of any group. Because many of them are in the country illegally, they are ineligible for most disaster aid, raising concerns that those without places to live will move to other regions where housing is more plentiful and cheaper.

For students who are still learning English and those who are immigrants, forging even small connections with educators and their classmates—as simple as a hallway conversation—can be crucial to keeping those students coming to school and motivated to persevere, both educators and researchers say.

Young children with at least one parent who speaks a language other than English at home are less likely to be enrolled in quality early childhood programs, although it is most critical for those students, according to a national report that includes a 30-state analysis on how different policies affect dual language learners.

As the White House digs in on its immigration legislation, school leaders and immigration advocates across the country face a dilemma in their fight to protect hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation. Trump said the list of proposals must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, and whose deportations were deferred by the Obama administration under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. But agreeing to any plan that would prioritize the removal of unaccompanied minors — many of whom have come to the United States from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala in recent years — would create a conundrum for educators and immigration advocates: in order to save DACA recipients, they would have to place another group that has taken refuge in U.S. schools in peril.

As Florida schools open their doors to hundreds of new students from storm-struck Puerto Rico — with even more expected to arrive in the weeks and months to come — district leaders are calling on state and federal lawmakers for help.

English Language Learners, also referred to as dual Language Learners (DLLs) — those under age 8 with at least one parent who speaks a language other than English at home — make up 32 percent of the U.S. young child population and a growing share of children in most states. While these young learners stand to benefit disproportionately from high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), they are less likely than their peers to be enrolled in such programs—potentially contributing to lags in kindergarten readiness and later academic achievement.

Reading instruction, especially if you're in a state with the Common Core Standards, is the responsibility of all teachers these days.  However, there are probably more ways to teach reading that you can "shake a stick at." And, with all the often competing research recommendations, it can be unclear to teachers which ones they should use in the classroom. This four-part series will specifically examine the biggest mistakes many teachers make when it comes to reading instruction.

When Hurricane Maria struck, Aida Díaz hid in her bathroom with four other family members, including her mother and sister. When she emerged, water had come into her home through the roof. After she tended to more immediate concerns in her home, Díaz, the head of the 40,000-member Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, had thousands of members of her teacher’s union to think about.