Under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, states have control over anything that is not addressed in the U.S. Constitution. That includes education. However, since 1980, the federal Department of Education has had an important role in funding and supporting schools across the nation. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order requiring that “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
While the president cannot close the Department of Education without action by Congress, half the staff of the department has already been let go, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon supports the closure of the agency she leads.
If the efforts to close down the agency are successful, what would be the consequences for Puerto Rico?
What does the Department of Education do in Puerto Rico?
The Department of Education, under Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, committed to supporting the territorial government of Puerto Rico in transforming the education system in Puerto Rico by decentralizing decision making and removing political influences in the system. The plan makes Puerto Rico’s system more like those in the states, with local control of schools through school boards and district offices rather than central planning for the entire territory. It also calls for immediate improvements in the infrastructure of schools which have in many cases been in disrepair since Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Transition Guidebook
Federal funding makes up 35% of all educational funding in Puerto Rico, compared with 9% in states. The Biden Administration provided more than $5 billion in emergency funding in 2021, which was used to reopen schools closed during the pandemic and to provide COVID vaccinations through the schools. In the same year, Cardone established the Puerto Rico Education Sustainability team (PRES), which provided training and support for the transition. In 2022, the American Rescue Plan allowed Puerto Rico to increase teacher pay scales for the first time in 12 years. Since it is the Department of Education that administers the funding, Puerto Rico is likely to be affected more by the closure of that office than states are.
Puerto Rico also has the highest proportion of special needs students in the nation, at 37%. Again, since the Department of Education administers funding for special education, this makes Puerto Rico more vulnerable than the states to disruption of that agency. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal program; the current administration has said that it will be moved to another (as yet unnamed) agency.
It is realistic to assume that the end of the federal Department of Education would affect Puerto Rico significantly.
The Office of Civil Rights
In addition to funding and technical support for state and territory schools, the Department of Education includes the Office of Civil Rights, which deals with complaints of discrimination and creates federal statutes preventing discrimination in schools.
Much of the data collected by the Office of Civil Right focuses on the ethnic background of students, including the ethnicities facing discipline or repeating grades. Since Puerto Rico is quite homogenous within the framework used by the agency (more than 98% of students are identified as Hispanic), the data for Puerto Rico is not particularly illuminating. Further data on incidents at schools in Puerto Rico, which is provided for states, is missing.
It is therefore not clear how the closure of the Office of Civil Rights might affect Puerto Rico schools.
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