Puerto Rican Students Deserve Better

Access to High-Quality Schools | 09/23/2026

Jamayka Young Digital Communications Manager

Puerto Rico and The systemic underfunding of public schools

Puerto Rico is home to more than 240,000 U.S. public school students. The island operates as one centralized school district, funded exclusively by the territorial government and federal grants.

Until a few years ago, Puerto Rico was the 3^rd largest school district in the U.S., losing that position after more than 250 schools were shut down in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

(under) Funding in Puerto Rican Schools

Unlike states, Puerto Rico has no state or local education funding allocations, which other school districts heavily rely on to pay teachers, buy supplies, and maintain their schools.

The funding issues go even further. For example, states and Washington D.C., are entitled to reimbursement from the federal government for services provided to support students with disabilities. Yet, Puerto Rican schools are denied funding for special education services, costs which amounted to more than $433 million dollars in 2023 alone.

The Impact on students

Infrastructural collapse, on top of decades of systemic underfunding have led to disastrous results for students in Puerto Rico. In 2024, the NAEP Mathematics Assessment that all U.S. 4^th and 8^th grade students take, just 2% of students in Puerto Rico tested at or above proficiency levels. And that is actually an increase from 0% in 2022. Zero students meeting proficiency benchmarks in a United States school district is obscene.

This is what advocates mean when we say that ensuring fair access to high-quality education for every child goes beyond what happens in the classroom. Kids can’t learn on an empty stomach, if they are housing insecure, or when their schools and roads create dangerous conditions for students and educators alike.

There is no wonder more than 42% of the student population has left the island in the past decade, with families moving to the mainland in search of a better education for their children. This has ripple effects, impacting the students forced to move away from their home, the school communities in already under resourced, often urban school districts that absorb these students, and the students left behind in schools with even less funding.

What we can do

There needs to be a serious restructuring of the federal government’s relationship to Puerto Rico, from funding to education policy. It is the duty of our legislators to ensure every child in the U.S. – from D.C. to Hawaii to Puerto Rico – has access to a safe, high-quality public education. And the local families, students, educators, and school communities must have greater decision-making power in what happens to their children and schools.

We see that leadership in education advocates and organizations led by those living on the island, as well as Puerto Ricans in diaspora. Organizations like Flamboyan Foundation are working to ensure every early learner has the foundations they need to become lifelong readers. And Puerto Rico Rise Up is coordinating disaster relief, ensuring children have adequate clothing and working to increase STEM education on the island with their Coqui Education Program.

Together We Win: A School Board Victory in Croydon

Parent & Family Engagement | 06/30/2022

Stand for Children

We needed 283 votes to save our school. Little Red is a K-4 school, the only school in Croydon. The older students are allowed to choose one of the nearby middle and high schools to attend, and our district covers the expenses. That’s how the original budget worked at least.

We got our last big snowstorm in March, on the day of the annual school budget vote. Anti-public-school extremists used the resulting low turnout to slash the district budget in half. It passed and I was in disbelief. With the new budget, Little Red would close, and Croydon parents would have to pay $8,000- $9,000 per student to send them to public schools. I was devastated thinking of what this meant for my 3 children and all the students I taught every day.

Other parents felt just like I did. Stand up for Croydon Students, the organization we eventually formed, started off as just a group of worried parents trying to figure out how to protect our children. We eventually found a way that would allow for a budget re-vote, but only if we were able to turn out 283 voters. Croydon is home to about 800 people, and in my time on the school board, only about 50 of them usually came out to vote.

So, we got to work. We spent the next few weeks drafting up petitions, posting lawn signs, calling neighbors, and knocking on doors. To see so many people come together to protect our children, it felt good to know that your neighbors really care about the community.

It was the first week of May and the YMCA camp dining hall was packed with friends and neighbors. Still, we couldn’t risk not having enough voters turn up, and spent the morning calling to remind everyone how important it was to come out, vote, and protect our schools. The hall was bubbling with energy as the vote was counted, and in a landslide vote of 377 – 2, we won. Weeks of hard work paid off.

In that moment, we had stood up against extreme politicians to say no to privatizing our schools, that we would fight to make sure that all our students had a quality education. We proved that when we fight together, we win.

Thomas Moore
High School STEM Teacher, New Hampshire

Standing Strong for 25 Years

Who We Are | 06/1/2021

Stand for Children

Twenty-five years ago today, on June 1, 1996, 300,000 people stood together for children at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

What began as an historic rally has become a bold and vital organization impacting the education and lives of children furthest from justice across the nation.

Stand for Children’s 25th anniversary comes at a time of unique possibility to make progress toward racial and social justice.

For the rest of our lives, we may never have a better chance to reduce child poverty, increase economic mobility, root out individual and systemic racism, and close our nation’s racial wealth chasm.

Stand is passionately committed to seizing this opportunity to achieve lasting positive changes for children, for families, and for society as a whole.

We know you are, too, and look forward to standing strong together in the crucial weeks and months ahead.

Thank you for doing all you can, in every facet of your life, to meet this moment.