K-12 School Funding, Dual Language/Bilingual Education

This chapter provides an overview of how the federal government and states fund dual language bilingual education (DLBE) and English language learners (ELLs) in particular. To unpack this process, we start with a brief history of the salient legislation and the established procedures in place to fund DLBE. We then examine the variation in supplemental funding approaches, including the use of weights across states and the costs associated with funding DLBE and ELLs. Next, we discuss the trends in ELL supplemental funding, ELL classification, and the impact of ELL classification criteria on supplemental resource allocation. Finally, we end this chapter with several recommendations to improve the funding of DLBE programs.