ELL News Headlines

New York City has announced an ambitious plan to extend universal preschool to 3 year olds. Mayor Bill de Blasio says the effort will expand on the city's current program for 4 year olds.

Each year, about 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools, and most are protected from deportation under an Obama administration policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. But many DACA students are on edge, unsure about what the future holds for them or their families. Special correspondent Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week reports.

In this op-ed, Sonia Nazario, journalist and author of Enrique's Journey writes, "This may surprise you: The U.S. knows a lot about how to dramatically reduce the number of immigrants crossing our southern border illegally. We have programs in place that work. But few politicians promote these efforts. And funding for them soon could be cut….It sounds radical, but this is what works: Instead of adding fire power, fencing and drones at the border, we must deal directly with powerful forces pushing people out of their home countries and toward the U.S. The majority of the border-crossers in the Southwest come from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — all three are among the most dangerous nations on Earth."

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, students already have the option to spend at least half their day learning in a language other than English at 87 elementary, middle and high schools. Two schools even offer this "dual-language" instruction to preschoolers. Now, district officials want to add even more preschool classrooms into this mix.

"The greatest storytellers connect with readers through universal truths, and Uwiringiyimana tells her own profound story with clarity and honesty. After a heart-pounding cliff-hanger opening, Uwiringiyimana goes back in time to revisit her childhood in Uvira, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although occasionally interrupted by bouts of war and subsequent migration, her childhood was rich and fulfilling. However, everything changed during a stay at a refugee camp…The title is a critical piece of literature, contributing to the larger refugee narrative in a way that is complex and nuanced but still accessible for a YA audience. VERDICT This poignant memoir is a must-have for teen collections."

The number of English Language Learners in our schools is growing and, at the same time, both the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Common Core standards are raising the bar for academic expectations.  This two-part series will be examining how teachers can best assist ELLs develop academic language and skills in writing argumentative essays, both which are highlighted in the Common Core. Today's responses come from Tan Huynh, Vicky Giouroukakis, Maureen Connolly, Margo Gottlieb, and Ivannia Soto.  You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Tan, Vicky and Maureen on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Just a few months ago, not many knew about these five fourth-graders from a low-income community in Indianapolis. But now, the Panther Bots, a thriving robotics team at Pleasant Run Elementary School, have become the face of a success story about a group of kids who were taunted with racial slurs but were too determined to let that affect their confidence. Earlier this month, they found themselves being honored on the Senate floor of the Indiana Statehouse. The group traveled to Louisville on Sunday to compete in a worldwide robotics contest.

A few years ago, educators in some districts that promote social-emotional learning told me they'd noticed some inconsistent messaging about the approach. In some schools, SEL was pitched to teachers as a tool for behavior management. In other schools, which were typically full of students from higher income families, it was billed as a way to boost the types of skills graduates will need for college and careers. Some boosters of social-emotional learning have urged educators and policymakers to be more thoughtful about how they discuss and carry out SEL. That difference in messaging can send messages to students, sometimes reinforcing stereotypes, they say.

Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four who has been living in a Denver church to avoid deportation, has been named one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.

It's a Saturday afternoon at Boston University's School of Education, where Elliot Kastner, a former Dartmouth College football player turned mechanical engineer, is addressing a group of students. He works through the geometry, the engineering and the many failures that led to his developing a tackling robot now used for football practice in the NFL and the NCAA. Adrian Mims looks on with a smile. He's a big fan of football — it's a game day and he’s wearing a Patriots T-shirt. And since 2009, Mims has made it his mission to use experiences like this one to help African-American and Latino students get to the highest heights of high school math with The Calculus Project.