ELL News Headlines

The District of Columbia and 26 states, including Maryland and Virginia, offer school districts the option of adding the Seal of Biliteracy certification to diplomas — and students who grew up speaking English are eagerly seeking it out in their studies of languages from Spanish to Mandarin to American Sign Language. The rest of the country would do well to follow these states' lead. Bilingualism and biliteracy make individual students more competitive in the college application process and job market. Along the way, dual-language immersion helps students become better learners and thinkers generally and can help close the achievement gap not just for non-native English speakers but also for African American students and poor students. Cities and smaller communities also benefit from a biliterate population as they build business sectors with global reach.

School superintendents across the country are raising alarms about the possibility that Republican health care legislation would curtail billions of dollars in annual funding they count on to help students with disabilities and poor children. For the past three decades, Medicaid has helped pay for services and equipment that schools provide to special-education students, as well as school-based health screening and treatment for children from low-income families. Now, educators from rural red states to the blue coasts are warning that the GOP push to shrink Medicaid spending will strip schools of what a national superintendents association estimates at up to $4 billion per year.

What does it mean to lose your land, your language, and your heritage? For Alaska Natives, these are existential threats. On a trip to Southeast Alaska, NPR’s Melissa Block traveled to one village that is finding new ways to survive: Klukwan, ancestral home of the Tlingit tribe.

When President Trump announced in the winter that he would ban people from six mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States to protect national security, university leaders were some of the most outspoken opponents of the measure, warning it would hinder research and recruitment of the best talent in the world. On Monday, some university leaders welcomed a Supreme Court ruling that Trump also claimed as a victory. “While we are still reviewing the Court’s decision, the Court has rightly recognized that students, faculty, and lecturers from the designated countries have a bona fide relationship with an American entity and should not be barred from entering the United States,” Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the Association of American Universities, said in a statement Monday afternoon.

Students in two Wisconsin school districts recently became the first to receive a new badge of honor in Wisconsin. Roughly 100 students from Waukesha and Madison graduated in June with the state’s new Seal of Biliteracy, which recognizes students who have achieved proficiency in English and another language.

Seventy-five years ago this month, a 13 year old girl in Amsterdam sat down and wrote the first entry in a red-checkered diary. Over the next two years, hundreds more pages followed as Anne Frank told about life in the "secret annex" where her family was hiding from the Nazis. For educators, the diary provides a rare chance for students to learn about the Holocaust from someone their own age.

The Girl Scouts of the USA will soon offer badges in cybersecurity for girls in grades K-12 as part of a growing national effort to bring technological skill and digital savvy to America's school children. "We recognize that in our increasingly tech-driven world, future generations must possess the skills to navigate the complexities and inherent challenges of the cyber realm," Girl Scouts chief executive officer Sylvia Acevedo said in a statement.

Niciera Armor was starting to take her classes more seriously. That was her "rose." But she was also letting little things get to her, making her angry and forcing her to fight to control her anger. That was her "thorn." The ninth-grader shared her week's highlights and struggles with a group of 12 other girls at Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School in Northeast Washington during a recent meeting. The group, known as H.E.R. Story, is an after-school club where girls meet once a week to discuss how they are feeling, how they are doing in school and how things are going at home. They sometimes study together, plan community service events, and share snacks and juice.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are in the midst of trying to replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — better known as "Obamacare" — with big implications for the nation's schools when it come to special education funding, teacher benefits, and more. So just how would the Senate bill — the "Better Care Reconciliation Act"—impact schools? How is it different from the ACA and the House bill in ways that might matter to educators? Advocates — and senators — were still combing through a 142-page Senate draft for details Thursday so stay tuned.  But, in the meantime, here is an initial list of things to watch for in the debate over a new health care law.

The Simon and Schuster imprint, Salaam Reads, was founded in 2016 to introduce readers to Muslim characters in children's books. Earlier this year, Salaam Reads published its first book, Amina's Voice, by Rockville, Md., author Hena Khan. How are children’s books becoming more representative of their readers? Kojo explores the approach to these stories with local book lovers and writers.