JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two years into Florida’s new form of standardized student testing, two Northeast Florida school districts once again have the leading scores in the state, marking student progress at the end of the year.
The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, or FAST, is administered to students three times during the school year: at the beginning, at the midpoint, and near the end. This month, the Florida Department of Education released scores for schools and districts for grades 3 through 10 for English Language Arts (ELA), and for grades 3 through 8 for math.
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On the English Language Arts assessments, 53% of students across grades 3-10 scored at Level 3 or above, meaning they were at or above their grade level. According to the state, that was an increase of four percentage points from the previous year, the first year of the FAST testing.
Of Florida’s 67 school districts, St. Johns County had the highest percentage of students performing at or above grade level in ELA, at 72%. Nassau County was next, at 66%. Two other Northeast Florida counties, Clay and Flagler, also performed above the statewide score.
On the math side of the FAST, 56% of students statewide in grades 3-8 performed at or above grade level, with a similar increase compared to last year as was seen on the ELA testing.
St. Johns and Nassau tied for the best score among all school districts on the math assessments, with 77% of students in each county scoring at or above grade level. In addition to the two high-scoring districts, three other area districts performed above the statewide score in math: Clay, Union and Flagler.
Duval was one of two Northeast Florida districts this year to have its overall scores in both areas fall below 50%. For English Language Arts, 46% of Duval students across grades 3-10 performed at or above grade level, and 48% were at or above grade level in math. Putnam County scored at 41% on ELA and 44% on math.
Last year, in the first year of the FAST testing, St. Johns and Nassau also ranked among the state’s top districts.
Use the interactive charts below to see how counties performed at different grade levels, across the three assessments.
For additional results, visit the Florida Department of Education’s FAST website.
