Reforming public education: The Massachusetts way

Education is the backbone of our society, yet, for decades many United States jurisdictions have neglected this important area. The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, unfortunately, belongs on that list. There’s almost a universal call on the Island to change how the local public education system is managed and to refocus efforts on complying with state and federal laws, especially with the recent signing into law of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, better known as PROMESA.

PROMESA will oversee every aspect of government spending, allocation of resources and the compliance with laws and regulations. This is why its imperative that we make changes in our system now.

{mosads}Puerto Rico has strong educational laws, built on the concept of local schools and their integration with the communities they serve. The problem is that there’s simply no accountability and a record of non-compliance with the laws.

Massachusetts, on the other hand, does have a reliable record of complying with its own educational laws, thus is a leading state in terms of educational achievements.

Numbers paint the picture. Students in Massachusetts routinely post the highest scores in math and science. Less than two percent of its students drop out before finishing high school and the number of students that attend universities is the highest in the nation.

How can a state with more than 965,000 students enrolled in the public education system, with 175,500 of them in the handicapped program, achieve those results?

This outstanding performance did not come out of the blue. In the summer of 1993, political leaders in this Northeastern state put aside their differences to pass a series of new and more robust laws that fomented more involvement of the communities, thus eliminating the political element that tends to backlog aid and other resources to the schools.

An integral part of Massachusetts’ success is its reliance on small school districts, which are similar to the Community School Program in Puerto Rico. The main difference is that in the Island, the community school system is based on a single school. In Massachusetts, the School District is built around a community of no more than 4,000 residents, this way they can better employ the fund allocations and resources assigned through the state and federal government.

The system also allows the community, which understands better than any bureaucrat the needs of the schools in its District, to request federal grants directly, as well as to disburse state-assigned funds.

All of this is possible because of a robust system of checks and balances. Accountability and compliance has made the difference in Massachusetts and it could do the same in Puerto Rico.

Our Island’s public system, with an enrollment of little more than 400,000 students, has all the necessary tools, including the laws, to have a second to none education system. What is needed is accountability and compliance. With PROMESA coming soon, there will be no other option.

In essence, PROMESA will make our students more proficient, thus, paving the way for a new and more educated workforce that can compete in the global economy.   

Jose Aponte-Hernandez is a state representative in Puerto Rico and is the former Speaker of the House for the territory.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.