Giving Compass' Take:

• Robin J. Lake highlights successful education reforms from Purto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. 

• How can funders work to spread successful education reform? How does local context impact the success of education reforms? 

• Learn about the need for accountability in education reforms. 

Finding a path forward must go well beyond any one reform, policy, or strategy, or person. They will require a concerted and sustained effort, new investments, and creative thinking, all locally driven. There is no “proven” path to follow in the states or elsewhere. The solutions must be uniquely Puerto Rican and must be powered by Puerto Ricans. I visited three schools that leave me wholly confident that this can happen.

ColaborativoPR: intensive community-based supports for high school students. Loiza, a deeply impoverished community on the northeastern coast, is the center of Puerto Rico’s Afro-Latino community and home to a promising effort to ensure more young people attend, and successfully complete, post-secondary education. More than 50 percent of Loiza’s youth live below the poverty level, and 48 percent of 18- to 20-year-olds are not in school. According to the 2006 census the median income for families was under $10,000. It is well-known for its cuisine and traditional “bomba” dance.

Instituto Nueva Escuela: Montessori for all. Nueva Escuela is part of a loose network of 50 K-8 schools that bring a traditional Montessori education to 14,200 Puerto Rican students. Nueva Escuela (not associated with the Centro Esperanza Montessori kindergarten) was started by Ana Maria Garcia Blanco, a revered educator and community leader who radiates warmth and energy. All of the markers of a Montessori class are apparent: the beads, the candles, etc. Students with special needs are fully included in the small classes. The school feels joyful and students seem confident. The network touts impressive (though unconfirmed) statistics: high rates of continuing education, many in selective high schools and colleges, no drop-outs, no serious incidents of violence, and no drug use.

Proyecto Vimenti (Lifelong learning in English): The first and only charter school on the island. Proyecto Vimenti is run by the Boys and Girls Club of Puerto Rico. The organization provides after-school programs to local students but found that they were spending more time working with students on academic remediation than on play and enrichment. And they realized these students’ families were locked into cycles of poverty that led to hopelessness and domestic problems, making it difficult for students to achieve upward mobility. Concerned, they started developing plans to open a school that would tackle education and poverty as interlocking pieces, drawing from all of the Boys and Girls Club’s programming and resources.

Read the full article about education reform lessons by Robin J. Lake at Education Next.