Florida’s School Grade Calculations: the Only Constant is Change

On Wednesday, July 24, 2024, the Florida Board of Education (FLBOE) will vote for yet another change in the state’s School Grade Calculation. The proposed 2024 calculation adds a new scoring category and changes the grading scale, grading elementary school under a different scale than all other public schools. Elementary schools will have a new scoring category based on the percentage of eligible students in grade 3 who passed the end-of-year statewide assessment in English Language Arts Reading. The new category will be worth 100 points, applies to any school with 3rd grade enrollment and is the result of the passage of HB1537 in 2023.

This will be the FIFTH YEAR IN A ROW that changes have been made to Florida’s School Grade Calculation.

Florida has more than 2,300 private schools accepting publicly funded tuition vouchers. According to the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), 69 percent are unaccredited, 58 percent are religious and nearly one-third are for-profit. NONE are issued school grades or held to any academic or accountability standard.

Needless to say, when the school grade calculation changes each and every year, the resulting grades become meaningless. When the FLBOE meets in Orlando on Wednesday, I hope someone will bring this up.

The release of the 2024 School Grades are expected shortly after the FLBOE approves these new calculations. Before their release, I invite you to contemplate “What Do Florida’s School Grades REALLY Tell You?,” “What Does it Mean to Be Well Educated,” and, if standardized tests and school grades are so important for Florida’s public schools, why aren’t they required for Florida’s $4 Billion/year, publicly funded voucher program?

The FLBOE meeting will be held at 9:00 AM, Wednesday, 7/24/27, at Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel and Resort (9939 Universal Blvd, Orlando, FL 32819), where this Thursday’s Teacher of the Year Gala is being held. If you can’t attend the meeting, you can watch the meeting on thefloridachannel.org.

---

For those who are interested, here is a quick review of Florida’s school grade calculations and changes since 2019. I have highlighted the notable changes from each previous year by bolding the print.

2019:

2019 was the year Governor DeSantis took office. The 2019 school grade calculation included up to eleven components and had remained unchanged since the move from FCAT 2.0 to the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) in 2015. There were four achievement components, four learning gains components, a middle school acceleration component, as well as components for graduation rate and college and career acceleration. Each component was worth up to 100 points in the overall calculation. The number of points earned for each component is added together and divided by the total number of available points to determine the percentage of points earned.

The 2019 School Grading Scale had been unchanged since 2015 and all types of schools were graded on the same scale: A = 62% of points or greater, B = 54% to 61% of points, C = 41% to 53% of points, D = 32% to 40% of points, F = 31% of points or less

2020:

2020 was the Covid spring. Due to the state ordered pandemic closures, no assessments were administered and no school grades were calculated.

2021

2021 was the Covid disrupted year. Many families elected to attend classes virtually, the FSA was administered and the calculation of school grades was optional for districts who had tested 90 percent or more of its eligible students in the 2020-21 academic year. Learning gains were calculated over two years (prior-prior year).

The grading scale remained the same: A = 62% of points or greater, B = 54% to 61% of points, C = 41% to 53% of points, D = 32% to 40% of points, F = 31% of points or less

2022

2022 was the final year of administration of the FSA. Learning gains returned to being calculated annually. School grades were calculated in much the same way as they had been pre-COVID.

The grading scale remained the same: A = 62% of points or greater, B = 54% to 61% of points, C = 41% to 53% of points, D = 32% to 40% of points, F = 31% of points or less

2023:

2023 was the first year for the new B.E.S.T. Standards, the result of Governor DeSantis’ January 2019 executive order promising to eliminate Common Core standards (Florida Standards) in Florida schools and “return to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic” and “outline a pathway for Florida to be the most literate state in the nation.”

2023 was also the first year for F.A.S.T. testing, which replaced the once a year, state-mandated spring assessments with three state-mandated progress monitoring assessments. DeSantis announced the transition to F.A.S.T. as “the end of high stakes FSA testing” and promised the new system would reduce testing time an average of 75% – a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.

Since 2023 was a baseline year, learning gains were not included in the calculation. School grades were calculated on an entirely new grading scale and considered to be “baseline” (and meaningless) but were published all the same.

HB1537, passed in the spring of 2023, changed the way the High School Career Acceleration category was calculated, allowing points for students earning an Armed Services Qualification Test score and two course credits within the same military branch and those earning 300 clock hours through career dual enrollment courses in a single approved vocational program.

School Grades were based on a scale designed to ensure results that were statistically equivalent to the 2021-22 results. This resulted in a different grading scale for each type of school, none matching the grading scale used for the previous 8 years:

• For elementary schools: A=62% of points or greater; B=50% to 61% of points; C=33% to 49% of points; D=22% to 32% of points; and F=21% of points or less.
• For middle schools: A=68% of points or greater; B=58% to 67% of points; C=40% to 57% of points; D=31% to 39% of points; and F=30% of points or less.
• For high schools: A=70% of points or greater; B=60% to 69% of points; C=40% to 59% of points; D=23% to 39% of points; and F=22% of points or less.
• For combination schools: A=67% of points or greater; B=56% to 66% of points; C=35% to 55% of points; D=23% to 34% of points; and F=22% of points or less.

2024

On Wednesday, the FLBOE is voting on more changes to the school grade calculation.

Significant changes proposed include:

• The addition of a new elementary school scoring category based on the percentage of eligible students in grade 3 who passed the end-of-year statewide assessment in English Language Arts Reading. The new category will be worth 100 points, applies to any school with 3rd grade enrollment and is the result of the passage of HB1537 in 2023.
• Changes to the grading scale, grading elementary school under a different scale than all other public schools. The proposed grading scale will look like this:
  • For Elementary Schools: A=62% of points or greater; B=54% to 61% of points; C=41% to 53% of points; D=32% to 40% of points; and F=31% of points or less.
  • For all other schools: each category is 3% points higher than elementary: A=64% of points or greater; B=57% to 63% of points; C=44% to 56% of points; D=34% to 44% of points; and F=33% of points or less.

This means K-8 schools will need to score more points to “earn” the same school grade as an elementary school. (Nonsense? It appears so.)

Moving Forward

We can expect more changes moving forward, thanks to SB2524 passed in 2022 which requires the FLBOE to adjust the grading scale upwards whenever more than 75 percent of schools of a school type (i.e. elementary, middle, high, or combination schools) receive a grade of “A” or “B.” The FLBOE will be required to continue adjusting the grading scale upwards until the scale has been increased to the point an “A” requires 90 percent or more of the points; a “B” requires 80 to 89 percent of the points; a “C” requires 70 to 79 percent of the points; and a “D” requires 60 to 69 percent of the points.

Again, what do School Grades actually mean if the calculation is constantly changing and, if they are so necessary to hold public schools accountable, why aren’t they required for Florida’s $4 Billion/year, publicly funded voucher program?