Florida students show across-the-board growth on state math, reading tests
South Florida Sun Sentinel | By Steven Walker |
Florida public school students showed significant growth on mathematics and reading exams this year, improving their passing rates on the high-stakes tests compared to last year, according to data released by the Florida Department of Education late Wednesday.
Public schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties also mirrored the state’s increases, with between two and seven percentage point increases in pass rates across all grade levels and subject areas.
Broward, for example, increased its pass rate in reading by five percentage points across all grade levels, while Palm Beach County increased its pass rate by four percentage points.
Scores on the state’s social studies and science exams also increased and were up by between three and four percentage points across all grade levels.
The scores from the 2024-25 school year seemed to mark a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had disrupted learning and depressed test scores.
Broward also boosted its Algebra 1 pass rate by seven percentage points while its Geometry EOC pass rate increased by eight percentage points. In Palm Beach County, the algebra pass rate moved up by four percentage points and the geometry pass rate by 5 percentage points.
Florida’s standardized tests are high-stakes with some scores from some exams being used for promotion and graduation decisions and the results factoring into the A-to-F grades the state assigns public schools.
On the key third-grade reading test, 22% of Florida’s third graders failed this year, putting them at risk of being held back. That figure matches last year’s rate, but is down significantly from the 27% failure rate in 2023.
Students did better on Florida’s Algebra 1 exam, with 60% passing this year compared to 55% last year. Passing the Algebra 1 exam is a graduation requirement in Florida, a rule the Florida Senate has tried and failed to change.
Students must also pass the 10th-grade language arts exam to earn a diploma and this year 58% of sophomores did, compared to 53% last year. Students can retake the algebra and language arts exams several times before graduation.
The COVID-19 pandemic was detrimental to students’ attendance and learning and negatively impacted how they performed on standardized tests. Last year, Florida posted its worst scores in more than a decade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and on the SAT, the college admissions exam.
But in the spring of 2025, they showed sweeping gains on Florida tests.
The state’s reading and math FAST exams, implemented in 2023, are “progress-monitoring tests,” meaning students take them three times a year. The first two tests aim to show what students know and what they still need to learn. The third test is high-stakes. The scores from those exams are what are released publicly, showing scores by school and district.
The state also gives standardized science exams to children in fifth and eighth grade and end-of-course exams in biology, civics and U.S. history.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. praised the state’s efforts in a statement released in conjunction with the scores.
“Today’s results affirm that our first-in-the-nation statewide progress monitoring system is making a difference for our students,” Diaz Jr. wrote in a statement.
