Higher %EL Does NOT Correlate with Higher Investment Into School ESL/Bilingual Education Programs
| %EL Range | Avg School Expenditure % for Bilingual/ESL Education |
| 0-5% | 0.22 |
| 5.1-10% | 0.51 |
| 10.1-15% | 0.92 |
| 15.1-20% | 1.24 |
| 20.1%-25% | 1.26 |
| 25.1-30% | 1.72 |
| 30.1-35% | 1.78 |
| 35.1-40% | 2.43 |
| 40.1-45% | 2.16 |
| 45.1-50% | 3.34 |
| 50.1-55% | 2.44 |
| 55.1-60% | 4.18 |
| 60.1-65% | 6.07 |
| 65%< | 5.90 |
Although the Average School Expenditure % for Bilingual/ESL Education is generally proportionate to the Ratio of English Learners in Texas School Districts , there are several outliers:
- School districts with student bodies that consist of 35.1-40% English Learners on average dedicate 2.43% of their funding to ESL programs, which is (1) noticeably higher than school districts that have student bodies of 30.1-35% English Learners, and (2) inconsistent with the degree to which school districts with 40.1-45% English Learners fund their ESL Programs.
- The same situation applies to school districts that fall into the 50.1-55% and the 60.1-65% EL categories.
- There are unexpected spikes in funding. This may be because school districts with significantly higher numbers of English Learners do not need to specifically invest into ESL programs because their curriculums are designed to be effective for English Learners and non-English Learners.
By not dedicating as much funding specifically for English Learners, schools with higher EL% can choose to invest more into their general curriculum and tailor it so that both groups of students – EL and non-EL – can universally benefit from the funding which would otherwise be bifurcated. This would also explain why there are inconsistencies in the test score results of school districts with different ratios of English Learners.
