Giving Compass' Take:

· After setbacks due to Hurricane Maria, Jude Schwalbach at The Heritage Foundation explains that new education reforms introduced in Puerto Rico will allow for school choice in hopes to help improve academic outcome. 

· How has school choice influenced student success in America? How is it affecting students in Puerto Rico? 

· Here's more on how school choice is lifting up Puerto Rico's children after Hurricane Maria. 

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria slammed the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, devastating homes and infrastructure and leading to loss of life across the island. Hurricane Maria’s catastrophic destruction, which caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, included the destruction of school facilities across the territory. Six months after the storm, hundreds of schools remained without power, and an estimated 22,300 school-age children had left the island—about one in three students. The storm greatly exacerbated the problems of a school system already in crisis: Puerto Rican fourth and eighth graders, for example, are roughly five grade levels behind their U.S. mainland peers in mathematics.

In the wake of the storm, Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, along with Governor Ricardo Rosselló, have pledged to support two new education reforms in the 2018 Puerto Rico Educational Reform Act.The first major reform takes immediate effect and introduces “Alianza” schools, which are government-funded but independently operated charter schools. The Alianza schools will have a special emphasis on bilingual and STEM education. During the 2019–2020 academic year, the Puerto Rican Department of Education will also begin implementation of a pilot scholarship program that will provide funds to parents to pay for tuition at the private school that is best for their child. In particular, the scholarships will help students who are low-income, have been victims of bullying or sexual harassment, or who have special needs to attend a private school or take university-level courses.

This paper discusses the reforms underway in Puerto Rico to modernize the territory’s K–12 education system (as well as legal challenges to those reforms) and considers lessons learned from reforms in another storm-ravaged area: New Orleans, Louisiana. It concludes with recommendations for empowering Puerto Rican families with education choice and other reforms needed to maximize educational opportunity for children on the island. In the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria, the opportunity for education reform is a silver lining.

Read the full article about education choice in Puerto Rico by Jude Schwalbach at The Heritage Foundation.