1 Expanding Equity and Opportunity for English Language Learners: A Look at Funding in High-ELL-Growth States Sonya Douglass Horsford and Carrie Sampson Sonya Douglass Horsford is an associate professor of education at George Mason University. Carrie Sampson is a doctoral student in public affairs and a graduate assistant at the Lincy Institute, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. [Blurb] An essential component of the “American dream,” the U.S. public education system carries the considerable responsibility of preparing a richly diverse student population for academic proficiency, economic mobility, and life success. Given the dynamic and evolving nature of the nation’s racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, it should not be surprising that many American schoolchildren speak a language other than English at home. Nearly one in every ten public school students (roughly 4.5 million of 50 million total students) were classified as English Language Learners (ELLs) during the 2010-11 school year (National Center for Education Statistics 2013). While states such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York benefit from the experience of serving large numbers of ELL students, a growing number of states are only more recently considering and learning what it means to serve this unique population of students adequately and equitably. For many states, this learning has occurred in the face of judicial battles. In fact, every state except five 1 has had at least one finance equity lawsuit filed against it (National Access Network 2011). Confronted with explosive increases in ELL enrollment and diminishing state budgets, the funding of ELL education at the state level presents a serious education policy challenge that requires immediate action, given its implications for educational equity and opportunity. For example, Nevada’s growing yet underfunded ELL population has attracted the attention of both the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which are considering suing the state for its violation of equal educational opportunities for marginalized students, including the lack of financial resources available specifically for ELL students (Doughman 2013). Although each state is different, insufficient human capital and funding capacity at the state level, coupled with the lack of a clear vision for ELL education nationally, creates huge challenges for schools and districts seeking to improve learning opportunities and outcomes for their ELL students. In this article, we review state-level ELL funding for the ten states experiencing the highest ELL population growth between 2000-01 and 2010-11. These high-ELL-growth states are South Carolina, Kentucky, Nevada, Delaware, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and North Carolina. While the U.S. ELL population has grown 18 percent from 2000-01 to 2011-12, which is a significant increase, these states have experienced ELL growth ranging from 135 percent in North Carolina to an astonishing 610 percent in South Carolina. These dramatic 1 Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, Utah, and Nevada.