Eliminated overestimation of statistics that marketed COFINA bonds

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PRESS RELEASE

February 4, 2018

DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

AUTHORIZED STATEMENTS BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS ON CONGRESSIONAL EXPRESSION AGAINST PROPOSED CONSOLIDATION AND OUTSOURCING

Last Friday, a group of 15 congressional members of the United States House of Representatives, both Republican and Democratic, signed a letter to express their rejection of the provisions on the Institute of Statistics contained in Reorganization Plan No. 1 and its enabling bills, both Senate Bill 809 and House Bill 1403.

In their communication, the congressmen recognize that the Institute of Statistics is a key ally of federal statistical agencies and that, greater collaboration between the Institute and federal statistical agencies, is essential for the Federal Government to produce the same statistics on Puerto Rico, which are already produced for all 50 states of the United States.

We greatly appreciate these expressions and we join them. That's the way it is. The Institute has been working for years, for example, to include the economy of Puerto Rico in statistics on the United States economy. For this reason, the Federal Government has required us to make some improvements to the methodologies used by the Planning Board.

In fact, we are currently the only entity in Puerto Rico that dedicates its own resources, including 10% of our budget, to making these improvements. For this purpose, there are already newly signed interagency agreements between the Institute and the Federal Government. It's just a matter of being allowed to execute them. We are extremely concerned that the proposed reorganization will stop or postpone these important projects, which could undermine the inclusion of Puerto Rico in the United States economy.

We are confident that in the coming days their counterparts in the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico will carefully weigh Reorganization Plan No. 1 and its enabling bills and will also join the call of their peers in the Federal Congress regarding the importance of maintaining an independent Institute of Statistics.

Likewise, we trust that in the coming days more voices will continue to unite and speak out against the proposed reorganization, just as more than 1,700 people have already done through the cyber petition on the change.org platform initiated and promoted by the American Statistical Association.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

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PRESS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Statistical Yearbook of the Education System 2015-2016 has been published

Study reflects decrease in the prevalence of bullying at school among girls

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) published the statistical profile of Puerto Rico's education system for the academic year 2015-2016. The report includes data and information on all levels of education (pre-primary, primary, secondary, post-secondary, and university), both for the public and private sectors.

For the segment that groups the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels, the study highlights that in the public system the number of schools decreased from 1,386 to 1,332; students decreased from 410,950 to 379,818; teachers increased from 31.186 to 31,993 and the student-to-teacher ratio decreased from 13.2 to 11.9. 51.1% of the students were male, and the number of students in special education decreased from 129,086 to 123,376. While for the private system the number of schools decreased from 853 to 795 and the number of students decreased from 144,034 to 142,235; the number of teachers decreased from 11,645 to 11,536. 50.7% of the students were male, the number of students in special education increased from 15,828 to 16,462, and the student-to-teacher ratio increased from 12.2 to 12.3.

The new Measurement and Evaluation for Academic Transformation tests, better known as the META, began to be implemented in the public sector in the academic year 2015-2016; these revealed that 45% and 51% of all students in the public sector were proficient in English and Spanish subjects, respectively, while in mathematics only 33% were proficient. Regarding the results of the Academic Achievement Tests, known as Learn Aid and taken by students from the private sector, they revealed that between 62% and 67% of students in all grades, in the private system, were proficient in the subjects of Spanish, English, non-verbal reasoning and mathematics.

Regarding the average scores obtained in the University Assessment and Admission Tests, tests known as the College Board, the results showed that, in the public and private sectors, the subject with the highest score was English, with 443 and 552, respectively. It should be noted that, for all subjects, including verbal and mathematical reasoning, students in the private sector scored higher compared to the public sector.

This statistical profile also revealed that the results of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, related to bullying, demonstrate a decrease in the prevalence of Bullying towards girls in public schools from 13.4% (2013) to 10.5% (2015).

“Achieving a statistical profile of the entire educational system in Puerto Rico, including data from both the public and private systems, requires multiple sources of information with methodologies and publication dates that vary widely from each other. It is for these reasons, among others, that this type of product is usually referred to two or three years prior to the current year. But despite this, this Statistical Yearbook is the only product in Puerto Rico that presents a standardized reference framework that contrasts with previous years and provides projections for the future, as far as education statistics are concerned,” explained Dr. Orville M. Disdier, Acting Executive Director of the Institute and lead author of the report.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.

For more information or to access the statistical profile of Puerto Rico's education system for the academic year 2015-2016, you can visit the website: Publications or through the social networks of Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico).

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Press Contact:

Idia Martínez

787-603-3200 imartinez@upfrontpr.net

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