Learning the Language
Education Week reporters covered English-language learners, bilingual education, and civil rights issues and explored the educational, policy, and social issues surrounding ELLs in U.S. schools. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: English language learners and bilingual education.
English Learners
How Will Schools Teach English-Language Learners This Fall?
A new database offers a state-by-state look at guidance on supporting English-learner students and their families amid the global pandemic.
Equity & Diversity
Deportation Fear Grips Latino Students
The mere threat of immigration enforcement could have severe consequences for students' mental health, school engagement, grades, and post-high school lives, a new study finds.
English Learners
Q&A
Spanish-Speaking Students Need Support. A New Podcast May Help
Por Nuestros Niños, an education-focused Spanish-language radio show and podcast, could help families navigate an uncertain return to school.
Families & the Community
Schools Failed English-Learners During the Shutdown. How Can They Do Better?
A new report urges districts to pay close attention to how they choose and use technology for students who are not yet fluent in English.
Equity & Diversity
Q&A
A Look Back at How Undocumented Children Won the Right to Attend U.S. Schools
The fight over the rights of undocumented students has its origins in Tyler, a northeast Texas city where municipal leaders feared their school system would be overrun with immigrant families and students.
Equity & Diversity
After Supreme Court Victory, DACA Educators Vow to Keep Fighting
An estimated 15,000 educators in U.S. schools are recipients of DACA, the Obama-era program that allows immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to avoid deportation.
English Learners
How Will Schools Measure English-Learners' 'COVID-Slide' Learning Loss?
Native-language assessments may more fully reflect what English-language learners know and can do academically after months away from school. But not all states offer them.
English Learners
How to Assess English-Learners' Needs From a Distance? Here's Some Help
Unable to conduct in-person evaluations, schools must find new ways to determine if students need English-language-learner support services.
Federal
More Funds Needed for English-Learners During Coronavirus Crisis, Advocates Tell Congress
More than 40 organizations have signed on to a letter to Congress, requesting $1 billion in aid to help districts and states meet the needs of the nation's nearly 5 million English-learners.
English Learners
Where They Are: The Nation's Small But Growing Population of Black English-Learners
In five northern U.S. states, black students comprise more than a fifth of ELL enrollment.
English Learners
English-Learners May Be Left Behind as Remote Learning Becomes 'New Normal'
English-learners often lack access to technology at home, experts and educators say, and their teachers are less likely to assign them to use digital learning resources outside of class.
Equity & Diversity
The Nation's English-Learner Population Has Surged: 3 Things to Know
The number of English-learner students in U.S. schools has increased 28 percent since 2000; 43 of 50 states have experienced an uptick in enrollment, federal data indicate.
English Learners
In Some States, ESSA Goals for English-Learners Are 'Purely Symbolic,' Report Finds
More than four years after the passage of ESSA, English-language-learner education policies across the country remain "disjointed and inaccessible," a new report concludes.
Teacher Preparation
The Invisible Burden Some Bilingual Teachers Face
The extra work that many dual-language bilingual educators take on "too often goes unrecognized and is never remunerated," a new small-scale study concludes.
