Florida Senate bill would change high school graduation, third grade reading test rules
The Palm Beach Post | By Wayne Washington | April 1, 2025
A bill moving through the state Legislature in Tallahassee would dramatically alter graduation requirements for students by ending the need for them to first pass the Algebra 1 and the 10th grade English language arts assessments.
The legislation would also give third graders multiple opportunities to pass the reading test before being promoted to the fourth grade.
If the bill passes, Florida would join a growing number of states across the country that are moving away from requiring students to pass a standardized test before graduating.
“We’re not going to stop children from graduating because they can’t pass the Algebra 1 and English language arts test,” said state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Delray Beach. “This way, they’ll get a diploma.”
Why bill could be headed toward passage
Berman and every other member of the Pre-K-12 Education Committee voted in favor of Senate Bill 166, whose author, Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, touts it as a way of streamlining and updating education. In addition to the Pre-K-12 Education Commission, the bill has also passed through the Appropriations Committee on Pre-K-12 with unanimous, bipartisan support, indicating it is headed toward passage.
There is no companion bill in the state House, but Berman said it could still be approved in the frenetic, deal-making final days of the legislative session.
The Palm Beach County School District says it does not comment on proposed legislation.
If approved, the bill’s changes would go into effect on July 1, meaning students who will be seniors during the 2025-26 school year would not have needed to pass the Algebra 1 and ELA assessments in order to graduate. The Algebra 1 test is an end-of-course exam administered for the first time when the student completes the course. The language arts assessment is first administered in the 10th grade. The bill would make the ELA assessment account for 30% of a student’s grade in that course, which is already the case for the Algebra 1 assessment.
Other education changes in bill
The Florida Education Association backs those changes.
“No student should be denied a high school diploma simply because of a single test score,” the group said in a statement. “This bill is a step in the right direction by no longer requiring students to pass the Algebra I (end of course assessment) in order to receive their diploma. Students are still held to the same high standards for course completion, but are no longer at the mercy of a single test.”
In addition to ending the requirement that students pass the Algebra 1 and ELA assessments before graduating, the 107-page bill would make a wide range of other changes to education in Florida, touching on everything from technical, budgetary adjustments for school districts and collective bargaining tweaks to class size reporting changes and the elimination of some school construction project reporting requirements.
SB 166 would give third graders multiple opportunities to score well enough on their reading assessment to be promoted to the fourth grade.
Third grade scores on the reading assessment, which measures reading comprehension, vocabulary, language and writing skills, range from level one to level five. Level one is inadequate. Level two is below satisfactory. Level three is satisfactory. Level four is proficient, and level five is mastery.
Currently, third graders are tested at the beginning of the school year, again in the middle of the year and at the end of the year, with that final test score counting as the one that would determine whether a student could be promoted.
The bill would allow a third grader to be eligible for promotion if they test at a level two or higher on any of the assessments, not just on the final one. They could be promoted even if they score a two on the first assessment but score a one on each of the final assessments.
Critics of that change argue that it breaks faith with the purpose of the first two assessments, which are to gauge where a student is and how well they are picking up the material. They also argue that allowing a student to be promoted when they get an inadequate score on the final assessment could set up that student for prolonged learning challenges.
“We just reject the idea that we should lower student expectations like this,” said Nathan Hoffman, senior legislative director for the Foundation for Florida’s Future, an education policy group founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush. “The theory is that students will rise to the level of expectation that you set.”
Supporters of the change for third grade testing say that, as with high schoolers, no single test should determine whether a student can move on.
