Gov. Ron DeSantis announced more than 60% of Florida K-12 students are performing at or above grade level in both English language arts and mathematics as part of the state's end-of-year progress monitoring system while speaking at a press conference in Lakeland this week.
Florida started end-of-year progress monitoring, officially known as the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST), during the 2022-23 academic year. Designed as a replacement to standardized tests, FAST tracks student progress in real time in English language arts and mathematics throughout the academic year.
"This is a record for our state," DeSantis said. "So, when we started this, 49% of students scored at or above grade level on end of year English language arts progress monitoring assessment. That number has now increased to 61% over these four years, that means more than 150,000 additional students are now meeting or exceeding expectations in English language arts."
Gov. DeSantis also highlighted the state's mathematics progress.
"53% of students scored on or above grade level in mathematics in 2023 assessment. Now, 62% of students are performing at that level, that's an improvement of nine percentage points, that translates to about 115,000 students performing at or above grade level over and above than where we were in 2023," DeSantis said.
"I think this innovation was the right way to go. I believed in it, it made sense, thought it would be good for students, and now we're seeing that this is really paying off," DeSantis added.
Florida Commissioner of Education Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas also celebrated the results.
"These results are what we tap year after year as a measurement, not just of our success as a state, but as the governor put it, those who are in the trenches - the teachers, the parents who are working together for what matters most, the students, and ensuring that the next generation of students is learning appropriately in the subject areas," Kamoutsas said.
