Florida Continues to Shine with its National Ranking for K-12 Achievement

Florida Department of Education | September 2, 2021

~ Annual Quality Counts report grades Florida third in the nation for second year ~

Tallahassee, Fla., September 2, 2021 – Florida continues to shine with its national ranking as third in the nation for K-12 Achievement according to a new 2021 Quality Counts report by Education Week. This is the second year Florida has ranked third, which was a move up from fourth in 2019 and continues to be the highest ranking ever in K-12 Achievement for the Sunshine State.

“Florida continues to set the pace for the nation in education,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We led the nation in re-opening our schools last year and our entire education community stepped up to make sure that every student received a quality education. In Florida, we will continue to make sure that every child has the opportunity to learn in school and get a great education.”

“Today’s announcement is a clear measure of the collective hard work of our students, their families, our teachers and school leaders,” said Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran. “With the implementation of our new B.E.S.T. English Language Arts and Mathematics standards, investments in early literacy, early learning and closing achievement gaps, and collaboration with school districts to implement data-driven supports like massively increased use of progress monitoring, we are setting our students and teachers up for success to increase students’ growth and achievement in the years to come.”

The K-12 Achievement index is comprised of six indicator areas: Achievement Levels, Achievement Gains, Poverty Gap, Achieving Excellence, High School Graduation and Advanced Placement. To develop the measure, Education Week used NAEP performance data, College Board data and graduation data from the US Department of Education.

Highlights of the 2021 September Quality Counts report include:

• Florida outperforms the nation in 15 of 18 K-12 Achievement measures
• Florida is ranked 2^nd for improving the high school graduation rate.
• Florida is ranked 3^rd for improvement in grade 4 mathematics.
• Florida is ranked 4^th for improvement in grade 8 reading.
• Florida is ranked 4^th for improving the grade 4 poverty gap.
• Florida is ranked 6^th for proficiency in grade 4 mathematics.
• Florida is ranked 6^th in the nation for improving high advanced placement test scores
• Florida is ranked 7^th for the size of its grade 4 reading poverty gap.
• Florida is ranked 7^th for improving the grade 8 poverty gap.
• Florida is ranked 8^th or improvement in grade 4 reading.
• Florida is ranked 8^th in the nation for successful grade 11 and 12 advanced placement test scores.

Since 2015, Quality Counts has assigned states with an overall grade using data based on 39 indicators in three broad categories. For more information, visit www.edweek.org.