Edu/stats

Recently released data from the National Center for Education Statistics for school year 2013-2014:

  • Among U.S. public school students, 9.3 percent (an estimated 4.5 million students) were English language learners (ELL).
  • Five of the six states with the highest percentage of ELL students in public schools were in the West—Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.
  • Spanish was by far the most common home language of the ELL students (3.7 million students), followed by Arabic and Chinese (109,000 and 108,000, respectively).
  • Most of the students in ELL programs lived in more urbanized areas. On average, ELL students in cities made up 14.1 percent of the public school enrollment.