{"id":444230,"date":"2026-11-01T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444230\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:00:08","slug":"when-it-comes-to-school-accountability-florida-is-raising-the-bar-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444230\/","title":{"rendered":"When it Comes to School Accountability, Florida Is Raising the Bar \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Gov. Jeb Bush\u2019s recent essay<\/a> in The 74 rightly reminds us that accountability is not a destination. Florida built its education reputation by measuring results, publishing them plainly and refusing to accept mediocrity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That standard still matters. As the state\u2019s education commissioner, I believe the state\u2019s own assessment results provide a much clearer picture of the progress our students are making.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Florida\u2019s reading scores on NAEP are at their lowest point this century, and that the slide began before the pandemic, but that flattens a more complicated picture. In 2024, no state posted a statistically significant gain in Grade 4 reading, Grade 8 reading, or Grade 8 mathematics. The nation\u2019s fourth graders are reading below their 2003 level.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s Grade 4 mathematics score rose between 2022 and 2024 and ranked among the highest in the country, statistically indistinguishable from Massachusetts. Florida\u2019s fourth graders held steady on reading performance from 2019 to 2022 against the national post-COVID decline and ranked second. One NAEP cycle that happens to overlap the implementation of the state\u2019s new B.E.S.T. standards and progress monitoring is not a verdict on either policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NAEP remains a useful national benchmark. But it is not a curriculum-aligned measure of what Florida students are taught, and it produces no student- or school-level results that educators or parents can act on.<\/p>\n

State-level testing shows marked improvement. Since statewide progress monitoring began in 2022\u201323, 61% of students in grades 3\u201310 are on grade level in English Language Arts and 62% of students in grades 3\u20138 are on grade level in mathematics. That represents a 12-point gain in ELA \u2014 approximately 150,000 additional students \u2014 and a 9-point gain in mathematics or approximately 115,000 additional students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are not false positives. They reflect Florida students\u2019 performance on the content that our classrooms are teaching, measured three times a year. The statutory school grading system is an index of achievement, showing learning gains, acceleration and graduation rates for all students, as well as the lowest performers. Florida\u2019s statute does not allow a grade to be adjusted away from the points earned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The high percentage of schools rated A and B are also not new: in 2006, 74% of schools earned an A or B under a less rigorous assessment and a learning-gains definition that awarded credit for some low-performing students. High schools this year face the highest threshold for an A rating in the history of the system.<\/p>\n

The \u201chonesty gap\u201d argument depends on treating NAEP Proficient standard as synonymous with grade level. NAEP\u2019s own materials reject that equivalence, stating that it signifies competency over challenging material; it is not the standard Florida, or any state, uses to define grade-level performance. Nationwide, 30% of fourth graders scored at or above NAEP Proficient in reading in 2024. Massachusetts, the highest-performing state, reached 40%. Neither figure means that 60% or 70% of the remaining students cannot read on grade level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s largest Grade 4 NAEP gains occurred between 2002 and 2007, when the gap between the state\u2019s \u201con grade level\u201d designation and NAEP Proficient was wide. Aligning Florida\u2019s standard to a national label the assessment\u2019s authors disclaim would not restore honesty. It would outsource Florida\u2019s standard-setting process.<\/p>\n

Florida has not taken its foot off the gas. In recent years, the state has adopted three successive, more rigorous standards systems and three corresponding assessments. Learning gains were rewritten so schools no longer receive credit for students who remain at the lowest performance level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Common Core standards were replaced with the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking. A single end-of-year test was replaced with progress monitoring that gives teachers, families and students information they can use during the year. The statutory escalator raises the grading scale when performance rises. These are not the actions of a state content to coast.<\/p>\n

None of this is an argument for complacency. The escalator itself is worth a serious review. Sustained improvement on state assessments does not eliminate the need to ensure that high school grades, acceleration components and the automatic raising of the bar continue to identify schools that need support. Parents should be able to understand whether their children are on track without becoming data analysts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That work can proceed without converting a national NAEP result into an indictment of Florida\u2019s system or treating the state\u2019s own measures as inherently less trustworthy.<\/p>\n

Florida became a national leader by measuring what it taught and reporting the results plainly. It can continue to do so \u2014 raising the bar where the evidence supports it.<\/p>\n

Did you use this article in your work?<\/p>\n

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We\u2019d love to hear how The 74\u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Former Gov. Jeb…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7852,483,28,30,29,173085,173086,482],"class_list":["post-444230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-accountability","tag-commentary","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-k-12","tag-naep","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}