WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) this week introduced the ELEVATE Act (S.2761), bicameral legislation that will ensure states receive the federal funding necessary to provide high-quality instruction to students learning English. Specifically this legislation will correct a flawed funding formula the U.S. Department of Education uses to allocate funds to states by fully capturing the number of K-12 students who relocate to the mainland from Puerto Rico. This bill would allow Puerto Rican students to be fully counted in the annual grant allocation that states receive under the English Language Acquisition grant program. Correcting this flaw will be especially helpful to states like Connecticut and Florida, which have large and growing Puerto Rican populations. 

Between 2010 and 2017, Connecticut’s Puerto Rican population increased from 264,000 to 292,000—an 11 percent jump. Florida’s Puerto Rican population rose from 864,000 to 1.1 million—a 27 percent increase.

“As the son of a former English language learning teacher, I know how important it is that we adequately fund these programs in our schools. The failure to completely count newly arrived kids from Puerto Rico is unfair and I’m glad this legislation will make sure that states like Connecticut, with large numbers of families coming here from Puerto Rico, will get the funding they deserve,” Sen. Murphy said.

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