Florida school testing: DeSantis announces majority of students hit grade level benchmarks

LAKELAND, Fla. - Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that a majority of Florida students are meeting or exceeding grade-level benchmarks under the state's progress-monitoring testing framework.

Florida student test scores

What we know:

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that over 60% of Florida students are performing at or above grade level in English Language Arts, math, and other core subjects.

The milestone marks the first time student proficiency has reached this level since Florida abolished the old Florida Standards Assessment exams in 2022.

Under the current system, students take progress-monitoring assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of each school year.

Recent data shows English Language Arts proficiency climbed to 61% over the last four years, an increase from 49% when the progress-monitoring model started.

Math proficiency rose to 62%, marking a 9-percentage point improvement from the 53% proficiency rate recorded during the 2023 assessment.

Florida Department of Education Commissioner Stasi Kamoutsas noted that the academic gains extended across all student subgroups.

For English Language Arts, proficiency rose by five percentage points among English-language learners, African American, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students, while students with disabilities saw a three-percentage point increase.

In mathematics, proficiency grew by six percentage points for English-language learners, four percentage points for Hispanic students, and three percentage points for both African American and economically disadvantaged students. Students with disabilities also improved their math scores by two percentage points.

Additional data from the latest assessments shows that 60% of fifth-grade students demonstrated proficiency in science, while 74% showed proficiency in biology. In social studies, 76% of students scored at or above grade level in civics, and 73% reached that mark in U.S. history. Florida also established a record graduation rate of 92% during the 2024-2025 school year compared to the prior school year.

State education assessment policy

What we don't know:

Officials have not yet confirmed the exact timeline or testing schedules for individual school districts for the upcoming academic year.

The state has also not released specific data detailing individual school or district-level performance grades, which depend on these final end-of-year accountability results to help determine student graduation status.

School testing accountability history

The backstory:

Governor DeSantis signed legislation to eliminate the traditional end-of-year Florida Standards Assessment exams in 2022.

The previous system faced criticism because it only identified student learning gaps at the very end of the school year, preventing teachers from providing meaningful intervention while the student was still in the class.

Under the revised system, progress-monitoring tests in English Language Arts are administered to grades 3 through 10 three times a year, with math assessments following the exact same schedule for grades 3 through 8.

Florida education officials state achievements

What they're saying:

"The success is not ours," DeSantis explained. "The success is that of the people on the ground doing this every day throughout schools in the state of Florida."

"That’s literally hundreds of thousands of lives that are benefiting from the hard work that people are pouring into this education system, into their lives, into the hard work that’s being done on a daily basis," Kamoutsas stated. "When you are focused on merit. When you are focused on achievement. When you set aside the individual’s background with the way they look, and you focus on how can we meet them where they are at at the beginning of the year, when we review and assess the student, where are they struggling, what are their strengths? Then you assess them again in the middle of the school year to see what is their growth. If there was not, we need to provide immediate intervention and we need to make sure that the student is learning. Then, you measure them again at the end of the year to ensure what you did in the middle of the year was actually successful."

Student academic performance statistics

By the numbers:

• 92%: The record-setting state graduation rate achieved during the 2024-2025 school year.
• 150,000: The approximate number of additional students now meeting or exceeding expectations in English Language Arts compared to four years ago.
• 115,000: The number of additional students performing at or above grade level in mathematics relative to the 2023 metrics.

Polk CountyRon DeSantisEducation