ELL News Headlines

Five years ago, Miami-Dade schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and Daniela Pelaez walked out of North Miami High School hand-in-hand. Pelaez, the valedictorian of her high school class, faced an imminent deportation order after a federal immigration judge denied her request for a green card. The two have kept in touch since she moved to New Hampshire to attend Dartmouth College in the summer of 2012, setting aside time to chat every three to four months about classes, family, and work. The tone of their conversations on the topic of immigration have shifted from hopeful to harrowing amid the aggressive enforcement policies ordered by the Trump administration. As she prepares to graduate in June with a degree in anthropology and health studies, with plans to attend medical school in the future, Pelaez’ immigration status remains tenuous while awaiting word on the fate of DACA.

On the Navajo Nation, kids with the most severe developmental disabilities attend a school called Saint Michael's Association for Special Education. More than one-third of the Navajo Nation — which is the size of West Virginia — doesn't have running water. And at some of the places that do, like Saint Michael's, people don't want to drink it because it smells, tastes funny and looks bad. Many of the kids at Saint Michael's are medically fragile. So they have equipment that needs to be cleaned daily. The staff refuses to use the tap water to wash equipment. Instead, they use 5-gallon jugs of filtered water trucked in from many miles away.

The passage of Proposition 58 in November 2016 removes restrictions on bilingual education programs for California’s English Learner (EL) students, allowing California school districts to more easily create or expand bilingual and immersion programs. Now, schools and families have greater latitude to seek bilingual education, which will likely lead to increased demand for teachers with bilingual authorizations. Teachers in bilingual programs must be fluent in both English and the second language of instruction, as well as pedagogically skilled to support language acquisition and academic content mastery. Teacher shortages pose a unique challenge in this context. As districts and schools attempt to create or expand bilingual programs, they will have to vie for an already limited supply of fully prepared teachers, in addition to recruiting teachers with bilingual authorizations.

New York has become the first state in the country to make tuition free at public four-year colleges and universities, but it has sparked objections by imposing a key restriction on students who receive the assistance. It requires students to live and work in New York state for as many years as they received free tuition. If they don't, they'll be required to pay off the tuition amount as if it were a loan.

English language learners are the fastest-growing segment of the school population in Rhode Island, comprising 7 percent of all public school students, or almost 10,000 students. That's why Gov. Gina Raimondo is asking the General Assembly to set aside a specific amount of money each year for this group of students. The governor last year targeted $2.5 million for these students, and wanted to make this funding stream permanent, but the legislature chose to fund it for only one year.

A new photo collaboration between Getty Images and a website for Muslim women is seeking to change the perception of women in Islam.  The project between the photo licensor and MuslimGirl.com was launched last month and includes a collection of diverse images of Muslim women and girls that go beyond the head-to-toe burqa.  "One of the ways I open up my talks is by asking the audience to search 'Muslim women' images on their phone browsers, which is always met with their awe at the unsettling results," Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, founder and editor-in-chief of MuslimGirl.com, said in a statement. "I don't want to be able to use that example anymore."

"Across time, desperation has driven people from their homes in search of refuge—and the only way out is often through a stormy passage on the sea…It is impossible to ignore the importance of a book like this in the current political climate, and educators and librarians looking for a human face for the refugee crisis will find this offering essential."

In this excerpt from Navigating the Common Core with English Language Learners: Developing Higher-Order Thinking Skills, authors Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull-Sypnieski write, “Agency is the ability to be proactive in determining one's life path and not just react to the surrounding circumstances. Agency also recognizes that outside factors provide some limitations, and that people have some ability to influence and determine one’s response to them. Many of our English language learners face particularly large challenges in these outside factors—socioeconomically and linguistically. In addition, since many came to this country with little voice in the decision to do so, it may be an uphill battle to help them feel as though they do have control over what happens to them in life. Those issues make it even more important for teachers to encourage students to see these challenges not as limits to what they can do but, instead, obstacles that can be overcome."

At the K-12 level, Miami and New York City have programs that support bilingualism in English and Haitian Creole. A new dual-language program in Haitian Creole will be the first in Massachusetts, however, and Boston Public Schools administrators have worked with educators in Miami and other experts to develop a high-quality program. The Mattapan Early Elementary School will open in the fall of 2017 as the first expression of this goal. Located in one of Boston’s largely Haitian neighborhoods, it will have one Haitian Creole and English dual-language classroom for 4-year-olds, featuring the district's renowned preschool curriculum administrators are having translated into the new language.

The founder of an anti-immigration group wants to stop undocumented students from attending school in a southern California district, the Los Angeles Times reports. The effort could face significant legal challenges. Under the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, children are entitled to receive a free public K-12 education in the United States regardless of their immigration status.