Students in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs are a large and growing population in American schools. The U.S. Department of Education says that the number of ESL learners increased by more than 1 million from 2000 to 2020. That is about 10 percent of all students in the country. In states like California and Texas, nearly 20 percent of students are English learners. But “English learners are everywhere” in the country, notes Leslie Villegas. She is an education researcher with the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. Her recent study looked at the percentage of ESL students within each state, as well as the most common languages spoken at home for those students. As the number of English learners grow, there is a need for more ESL teachers. But the U.S. is dealing with a nationwide teacher shortage across all grade and subject areas. And in the next few years, experts expect the shortage to get worse among English language educators, Villegas said. Josie Gutierrez is the assistant superintendent of the Waco Independent School District in Texas. She said the teacher shortage has slowed down the growth of the district’s bilingual program. There has been an increase in state and federal pandemic aid to schools. So money is not the problem, Gutierrez noted. But the supply of teachers has not increased. And schools are “vying for the same supply,” she said.