History of Education in Puerto Rico

After lunch we returned to campus and attended a 2 hour presentation on the history and current events in education in Puerto Rico. This was done by Dr. Naomi Vega (featured in the video.) Some of the more interesting facts from this class were that the entire island of Puerto Rico is only 3,500 square miles - 35 miles from north to south and 100 miles across west to east.

The population is approximately 3.4 million on the island and approximately another 5 million on the mainland. On the island, only about 20% of the population is fluent in English. This made it somewhat difficult to get around if you did not know Spanish. The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, and even Mexico were easier to get around with English than Puerto Rico was with no Spanish fluency. This is part of the cultural gap that in some places or instances, "real" Puerto Ricans do not speak English as the primary language, even though they are a territory of the United States - they speak Spanish. Even people of Puerto Rican descent who are born in the United States and who speak English may not be considered by some to be "real" Puerto Ricans. In fact, there is a term called "Nuyoricans" for those of mainland descent, especially New Yorkers. It may or may not be derogitive, depending on the context in which it is used. This was also true for some of the words and phrases we were exposed to in our Spanish classes.

Some interesting numbers Dr. Vega showed us were:

Public schools = 1,523
Students = 517,113
Teachers = 42, 979

Private schools = 987
Bi-lingual schools = 174
Students = 224, 164

She noted that a large majority of middle and upper class families have their children enrolled in private schools. Some of the more expensive schools are Robinson, Baldwin, and St. Johns, Condado.

One note that I took from this class is that the educational system is a highly charged political arena, not unlike what we have here on the mainland.