ELL News Headlines

Just as peak field trip season was set to get underway in the spring of 2020, the pandemic hit. Schools, and the cultural institutions and countless other organizations that normally welcome K-12 students for experiential learning, closed their doors. A few years later, several factors may still be keeping schools from venturing back to in-person field trips, but a growing body of research, advocacy from some district-level officials, and anecdotes from students provide compelling reasons for bringing back in-person field trips.

Author Kate Messner describes the story behind The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class, a new multi-author series about all the kids in one elementary school classroom. She writes, “How would we make sure characters’ personalities and voices were consistent from book to book? Would authors be writing the same scenes from varied points of view, or would they be assigned different months of the school year to explore? There was a lot to figure out.”

Improving literacy doesn’t just happen inside the classroom. School librarians across New Jersey say they play an important role in fostering a love of reading and turning students into lifelong learners. But their role in promoting and teaching literacy in schools is misunderstood and often not acknowledged, they say.

We can offer students of all ages a deeper, more experiential way of learning. It all starts by making four intentional shifts in the classroom that can help teachers foster engagement and inquiry.

The First Lady hosted the first “Teachers of the Year” State Dinner at the White House. The dinner honored Missy Testerman, the current National Teacher of the Year, and other teachers committed to education.

A principal who focuses on being visible to students and honoring teachers’ work to support everyone in the building explains how she does it all.

Zadia Gadsden, who leads Takoma Park Elementary School in Takoma Park, Md., is The Washington Post’s 2024 Principal of the Year.

Investments that California and other states have made in public preschool have helped many parents through a child care crisis, in which quality options for early learners are often scarce and unaffordable. But many parents say the programs don’t work for their families. Even when Pre–K lasts the whole school day, working parents struggle to find child care before 9 a.m. and after 3 p.m.

Michael Ida (he/him) is a mathematics and computer science teacher at Kalani High School in Honolulu, Hawaii. In this piece, he writes, "While many might find it incomprehensible that a small group discussion between teachers evokes anything other than fun, fellowship and camaraderie, I find these spaces to be extremely isolating when I am the only Asian educator."

What will professional development for educators look like in 10 years? Will it continue to be a top-down, one-size-fits-all annual training that all teachers must attend, or will PD turn into something that teachers have always demanded it be — useful and relevant?