HVG-ACHQ: Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands

Jason Malloy previously wrote lengthy blog posts summarizing IQ and admixture data for both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The achievement data, which is the focus of this series of posts, was outdated. Here, we provide an update.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a predominantly Spanish-speaking U.S. territory. Its residents have full citizenship—allowing free movement to the mainland. Currently, more Puerto Ricans live on the mainland (5.8 million in 2023) than on the island (3.2 million). Based on the average of 16 samples, individuals on the island of Puerto Rico have an average European, African, and Amerindian ancestry of 66.67%, 19.80%, and 13.53%, respectively. The samples are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Admixture Estimates for Puerto Rico

Malloy previously reviewed a substantial body of intelligence studies on Puerto Ricans, estimating a territorial IQ of 84.6 based on 19 reasonably representative samples. However, this estimate depends on inclusion criteria and timeframe. In contrast, the Academic Achievement Quotient (ACHQ) was significantly lower, at approximately 71, based on NAEP math test scores from 2003 to 2005. Between 2011 and 2024, NAEP administered a Spanish version of the math test to Puerto Ricans, yielding an ACHQ of 76.06 relative to the U.S. average. Over the same period, mainland Puerto Ricans scored 93.61, while U.S. whites scored 104. The notably low NAEP scores in Puerto Rico remain puzzling. However, in the 2015 PISA study, students on the islands of Puerto Rico scored an equivalent of 85.64 on math and reading tests, leading to a final assigned ACHQ of 80.85 for Puerto Rico (based on the average of NAEP and PISA).

Another intriguing aspect is the minimal NAEP test score differences among Puerto Ricans on the island who identify as White, mixed White-Black, and Black, whereas clear differences exist among these groups on the mainland. Table 2 presents the results, as d-values relative to either the mean for Puerto Rico (in the case of Islanders) or that for the USA (in the case of mainlanders), for 8th graders in math from 2019 to 2024.

Table 2: Race Differences in Grade 8 NAEP Math among Puerto Ricans on the Island of Puerto Rico and on the Mainland

The trivial NAEP differences on the island are probably not due to a lack of difference in admixture between the groups. While only a few studies have reported ancestry percentages by self-reported race of Puerto Ricans, these studies suggest that both on the mainland and the island, White Puerto Ricans are 40% more European than Blacks, a difference similar to that observed among Brazilians. These results are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3: Admixture Estimates for Puerto Ricans by Self/Parent Report Race

A potential reason for the minor test score variations by self-reported race on the island might be an educational system so poor that it universally lowers scores. It would be valuable and likely feasible to conduct admixture studies using intelligence tests among Puerto Ricans on the island. Among mainland Puerto Ricans, Fuerst & Hu (2023) found a clear link between European ancestry and intelligence, though these findings may not necessarily apply to the island population.

Puerto Rico datafile.

U.S. Virgin Islands

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a territorial possession of the United States. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 106,000 and an ethnic composition that is 64.2% Black, 12.7% White, and 18.4% Hispanic. Almost all of the inhabitants live on three main islands: St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas.

Due to population shifts driven by migration from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Anglo Caribbeans, estimating the ancestral makeup of the U.S. Virgin Islands is challenging. However, if we assume that Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Mexican migrants to the territory reflect the average ancestry of their countries of origin, that White Virgin Islanders share ancestry similar to White Americans, that Black Virgin Islanders align with the single estimate from Benn-Torres et al. (2013), and that non-Hispanic multiracial individuals represent a blend of White and Black Virgin Islander ancestry, we can formulate an educated guess, as shown in Table 4. Under these assumptions, the island would be approximately 36.02% European, 57.91% African, and 6.04% Amerindian.

Table 4: Admixture Estimates for the U.S. Virgin Islands

Malloy previously estimated a territorial achievement quotient (ACHQ) of 79.4 for the U.S. Virgin Islands, while our recalculation using the same NAEP data yields an ACHQ of 84.4; however, both figures underestimate current performance. Since 2014, the Virgin Islands has adopted the Smarter Balanced Assessment, a Common Core-based test primarily used in the North and West, which provides yearly norms allowing for the calculation of d values. We computed these for grades 6, 8, and 11 from 2014-15 to 2016-17, and for grades 6 and 8 from 2018-19 to 2022-23 (as high school scores were not disaggregated by year in later norms). The average d value is 0.71, translating to an ACHQ of 89.36—compared to a U.S. Black/White achievement gap of d = 0.72 for the same period. Note that these gaps are not directly comparable since the former uses the larger USA SD while the latter uses the smaller pooled SD for White and Black Americans. This estimate for the Virgin Islands may underestimate the ACHQ since it is relative to the scores of mostly North and Western states, which tend to perform better than Southern and Southeastern states. Correcting for this without detailed data would be difficult.

Figure 1: Usage of the Smarter Balanced Testing System

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hispanics perform slightly worse than Blacks on the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which is unsurprising given that many are Spanish-speaking immigrants from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The reports do not provide a distinct category for Whites; instead, they include an “other” group that combines non-Hispanic Whites, Asians, non-responders, and mixed-race individuals. Since most non-responders are likely Black, this grouping underestimates ethnic performance differences. Consequently, the SAT offers a clearer measure of Black/White disparities on the island. We analyzed SAT data from 2016 to 2024, including 3,391 Blacks, 377 Whites, and 120 non-Hispanic mixed-race individuals (typically with Black and White parents), yielding d scores of 0.95 for Black/White differences and 0.31 for two or more/White differences. Results are shown in Table 5. Thus, unlike Puerto Rico, there seem to be pronounced self-identified race differences on the Virgin Islands.

Table 5: SAT Scores and Group Differences in the Virgin Islands (2016-2024)

US Virgin Islands datafile.

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