Disputes about statehood for Puerto Rico focus on many issues, from language to taxes, but one of the simplest questions is also one of the most common: what will the U.S. flag look like with 51 stars. Modern graphics programs are very different from the methods used in 1959, when the U.S. last added a… Read more »
Posts Categorized: For Educators
Online K-12 Educational Resources on Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico may be underrepresented in both state standards and textbooks, but there are additional resources available to educators now. Teachers often use online resources to address gaps in the available classroom curriculum. The question is, do online classroom resources present Puerto Rico more accurately than textbooks? We explored examples from a popular source of… Read more »
What Do Mainland Students Learn about Puerto Rico?
Textbooks still do a meager job of presenting the history of Puerto Rico and of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the U.S. Do U.S. standards require teachers to compensate for this lack in classroom discussions? Common Core standards list Puerto Rico in Social Studies standards several times: Basic U.S. geography, including 50 states and the U.S…. Read more »
Student Publications Examine Puerto Rico’s Political Status
The political status of Puerto Rico as been a contentious issue on the islands for more than a century, but many on the mainland have been unaware of this issue, either as a political question or as a matter of human rights. Recent events, however, have brought attention to Puerto Rico, and students throughout the… Read more »
For Educators: A Writing Lesson on Puerto Rico
Teaching high school or college students to write research papers requires an arguable topic, one for which there are multiple reasonable points of view and plenty of complexities — but on which the average student has not yet made up his or her mind. There is a tendency to ignore data which conflicts with decisions… Read more »
Federico Degetau y González, Puerto Rico’s First Resident Commissioner
Federico Degetau y González was the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States House of Representatives, a position he held from 1901 to 1905. Born in Puerto Rico on December 5, 1862, the son of a German father and a Puerto Rican mother, Degetau pursued his education in Spain, where he became… Read more »
Less College Aid for Students in Territory than in States
Puerto Rico has “the sixth highest rate of college enrollment in the world,” according to a claim of the ‘commonwealth’ party administration of the territorial government. The claim would only be true, however, if Puerto Rico were a nation. It is, in fact, a territory of the United States. The U.S. college enrollment rate in… Read more »
Early Childhood Educators Explain Problems and Goals of Puerto Rico Education
Puerto Rico’s budget problems threaten resources of early childhood education at a time when need for them appears to be growing. As members of Puerto Rico’s early childhood community have explained, “[i]f births are healthy and well timed, children’s health and development are “on track,” families are supported and supportive, and these efforts are sustained… Read more »
A Clear Explanation of the Territories of the United States
As this video explains, Puerto Rico is an organized, unincorporated territory of the U.S., containing 91% of the people living in all of the U.S. territories and more people than in 21 of the States. As the video further explains, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States “and the U.S. treats Puerto Rico as… Read more »
Tennessee Law Journal Analyzes Puerto Rico’s Territorial Status
A forthcoming article by Willie Santana in the Spring 2014 issue of the Tennessee Journal of Law & Policy examines Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States and the history of U.S. territories in general. Santana’s exploration of the path to statehood of the current states in the U.S. reveals a standard path followed by… Read more »
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