Education gap wider for some non-English speakers in county

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD–Two dozen teens pour into Margaret Vanbuskirk’s classroom for 6th period at Gaithersburg High School, a blur of blue jeans and baseball caps. They hail from countries wrenched by war and economic woe — El Salvador, Iraq, Togo — trying to full story

School Responses to Immigration Raids

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE–A school district in Texas used to have a standard practice of keeping the names of two adults on file who are authorized to pick up a student. Now, after an immigration raid in that district’s community, the school system requires each family to keep the names of 10 authorized adults on file. That’s an example of how some school administrators full story

Two-language program produces results

KETCHUM, ID–Test results show that students enrolled in the Blaine County School District’s two-language program outperform their counterparts in English-only classes. Recently released test results show that both Hispanic and non-Hispanic students in the district’s full story

Shakopee High School helps bilingual students dream big

MINNEAPOLIS, MN–Program aims to get more of them to go on to college by intensively guiding them through the ins and outs of the U.S. education system. Igor Kovalchuk used to worry a lot about college. The junior at Shakopee High School moved to the United States from Ukraine when he was 9. Kovalchuk dreams of becoming a music producer full story

UA head says aliens deserve degrees, too

FAYETTEVILLE, AR–The head of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville said the state must do everything it can to encourage more students to seek bachelor’s degrees — including possibly offering illegal aliens the lower tuition rates given to residents. University of Arkansas Chancellor G. David Gearhart stopped just short of endorsing a possible measure by full story

Dual-language programs popular at county schools

VENTURA, CA–Jackson Walthall spends his school day split between two teachers, two classrooms and two languages. In one, the second-grader at Bard School in Port Hueneme hears, reads and speaks only in English. When he moves to the other room, everything is in Spanish, from his teacher’s instruction to the posters hanging on the walls. full story

The Marriage of Title I and Title III

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE–Given that the joining of Title I and Title III under one administrative office of the U.S. Department of Education has already taken place, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. has put aside its objections and put out a joint statement with the National Association of State Title I Directors with recommendations for how the union full story

Qualified Koreans to Serve as English Lecturers

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA–The government is overhauling its plan to recruit 23,000 new assistant English teachers among Koreans who don’t have teaching licenses, said the nation’s top educator. To improve English education, the government had planned to give them civil servant positions under 3-5 year renewable contracts. This plan, originally proposed by President Lee full story

Six schools successfully achieve FELTOM accreditation

MALTA–Six of Malta’s foremost language schools have successfully completed a rigorous inspection process to qualify for FELTOM Accreditation. The chairman of the accreditation council, Professor Mark Borg, confirmed that am Language Studio, EC Malta, Inlingua, the Institute of English Language Studies, NSTS – ELI and Sprachcaffe fulfil the required criteria to become fully full story

English class for parents

TUCSON, AZ–Maria Tomaine didn’t want to be the only person in her home not to speak fluent English. Her husband, Paul, doesn’t speak Tomaine’s native Spanish, and her children’s primary language is English as well. So Tomaine took advantage of a free program her children’s school district offers because it believes parents who can speak English can more full story