November 20, 2025
English Language Learners (ELLs) make up one of the fastest-growing demographic groups of students in New York State’s public schools. As of school year (SY) 2023–24, the state identified 10.1 percent of students as ELLs, up from 7.8 percent in SY 2012–13.
For comparison, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that 10.6 percent of US public school students in fall 2021 were English Language Learners, with concentrations in states ranging from a low of 0.8 percent in West Virginia to a high of 20.2 percent in Texas; New York’s 9.7 percent ranks it fifteenth among all 50 states. Within New York State, the New York City School District enrolls not only the highest number of ELL students among all districts in the state (137,015; 17.2 percent in SY 2023–24) but also serves one of the largest populations of ELL students of any district in the nation.,
A variety of students fall into the ELL category, including those with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), recent immigrants, and children from refugee families. Spanish is the most common language spoken at home among ELLs in New York State, ranking first in almost every school district. Yet, the state’s ELL population is remarkably diverse: students collectively speak more than 100 different home languages. Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian appear frequently among districts’ top five languages by ELL enrollment.
Each school district is responsible for providing English Language Learners with access to services that help them gain proficiency in English while learning subject matter at the same academic level as their peers. The Regulations of the Commissioner of Education obligate districts to provide qualified staff and a bilingual education to any student who needs it. Recognizing that the provision of these services presents a financial cost to districts, the state allocates supplemental per-pupil education funding to districts for ELL students under its Foundation Aid formula. This formula uses a “one-size-fits-all” approach to funding, however; it assigns the same weight to all ELL students when determining supplemental aid. That is, the formula does not differentiate the cost of instructional resources for a student at the beginning stage of English proficiency compared to the cost associated with a student at a more advanced stage. As highlighted in the Rockefeller Institute’s December 2024 comprehensive analysis of the state’s Foundation Aid formula, this structure risks inequitably underfunding districts with higher concentrations of high-need students.
This policy brief explores funding reforms New York policymakers could consider to better account for the differing instructional needs of the state’s kaleidoscope of English Language Learner students. Specifically, the state’s Foundation Aid formula could employ a tiered-weighting structure to vary supplemental per-pupil aid available to school districts for each enrolled ELL student based on the level of instructional services needed. Several states already do precisely that. Under such an approach, students at the beginning stages of learning English could be assigned a higher weight—and thus be allocated more supplemental aid—than students much closer to mastering English and needing fewer instructional services. This brief outlines the rationale for this potential policy change in detail, examines funding approaches in other states from which insights can be drawn, and highlights important implementation issues reformers and policymakers should consider.
