ELL News Headlines

It was decision day for many New York City children last week, as the Education Department told eighth graders where they had been accepted to high school, and incoming kindergartners where they would start school in the fall. Despite a push to increase the number of black and Latino students at the city's most competitive high schools, the specialized schools, the number of those students who were offered seats for the fall was essentially unchanged from last year, according to the department.

Amarillo College is developing a way to help propel non-native English speakers through its 12-week certified nurse aide program and meet a growing demand in the area’s health care system. The college is establishing a new integrated English-as-a-second-language program, thanks to a grant from the Texas Workforce Commission, the state agency charged with providing training and services to Texas job seekers and employers.

Most would say getting a good night's sleep is critical to success at school. But a new study argues that social media and the lack of proper bedtime routines are making it increasingly difficult for students to get the sleep they need to thrive and even function at all in the classroom.

Last year, Robbie Santos enrolled in a coding bootcamp to become a web developer. He wanted to learn a skill that is in demand everywhere in the world. Santos is bracing for a future outside the U.S. because he, like many undocumented immigrants, is afraid President Donald Trump will deport him. Santos, 29, is one of the approximately 750,000 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who are currently covered by President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA, as it is known, gives legal work permits to these individuals and keeps them safe from deportation. Now, proponents of DACA are looking to the tech industry for help. This is because Silicon Valley made a big show of its support for immigrants and opposition to Trump's travel ban. Just where the industry stands on DACA, however, remains unclear.

Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, and this fall, West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) kindergartners will be both speaking and learning it. On February 15, the WCCUSD Board of Education approved a new Mandarin dual-immersion school that will open for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Here in the northeastern corner of Arizona, on an arid plain edged with sandy orange spires and pine-dotted mesas, teenagers have a rare opportunity to practice what policy wonks preach: to study academics through a lens that matters to them. A keen sense of relevance, and of community service, runs deep in students’ work here, where many Navajo families depend on livestock for their livelihood.

TED Talks announced today they were going to have their first TED Talks program in Spanish, TED en Español, which will include journalist Jorge Ramos. The same announcement shared a number of Spanish-language initiatives TED-Talks is undertaking, including Spanish-language versions of their popular TED-Ed video animations.

Even in a bean bag chair, 15-year-old Michelle sits up straight. With her hands on her knees, she looks down at the ground, smiling as she talks about her dreams of being a writer and a military doctor. As a high school freshman, Michelle is already accomplishing a lot: She's president of the student government association at the International High School at Langley Park.  She also writes for the school newspaper and plays basketball. Michelle came to the U.S. two and a half years ago from Puebla, Mexico. For many immigrant students, the trauma of crossing the border follows them into the classroom — affecting their performance and ability to learn. And that's where Michelle's school comes in.

The Senate on Thursday voted 50-49 to block the accountability rules for the Every Student Succeeds Act created by the Obama administration.  Without the rules, the requirements for accountability and state plans will be found in the language of ESSA itself. The Obama-era accountability rules, finalized late last year, set ground rules for how schools must be rated for school-improvement purposes, specified the requirements of (and flexibility for) states dealing with high testing opt-out rates in individual schools, and outlined how states would have to handle the "school quality" indicator in accountability systems. Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said that irrespective of the ESSA regulations' fate, states "just want certainty about how to proceed" as they finalize plans for ESSA.

Violent crime and unemployment rates are nearly twice the national average in Baltimore. Educators say factors like these add significant stress to children, causing emotional and behavioral problems, so several public schools are working to reduce that stress with mindfulness and meditation. Hari Sreenivasan reports.