BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
The state is bragging about student performance improvements revealed in the annual test data released this week. Among them was a stateside 20-percentage-point increase in English performance and a 42-percentage-point increase in math.
The data compared performance in grades three through 10 in English and grades three through eight in math from the beginning to the end of the year.
The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, or FAST, progress monitoring assessments are taken three times throughout the school year. Real-time results allow teachers and parents to assess “drive student improvement,” according to the state, by enabling adjustments in teaching methods and better communication between educators and families.
Scoring Level 3 or higher is the goal. Level 3 indicates the student is performing at grade level, but they could need additional support going forward. Level 4 is proficient, and Level 5 is exemplary. At Level 2 or 1, a student is below or well below grade-level performance.
Bradford School Superintendent Will Hartley said the district is working on comparing the state numbers with its own figures to assess the district’s progress.
English
During the first progress monitoring test in Bradford schools, most English proficiency percentages were in the teens for most grade levels. In the case of third-graders, that means, just 13% scored a Level 3, 4 or 5 on the assessment. By the end of the year, however, that had improved to 52%.
In other grade levels, there was also double digit improvement from the first to the third progress monitoring test. Fourth-graders improved from 23% to 55%, fifth-graders from 16% to 42%, sixth-graders from 29% to 56%, seventh-graders from 16% to 32%, eighth-graders from 18% to 39% and ninth-graders from 17% to 43%. Only 10th-graders saw an improvement of less than 10 percentage points, from 23% to 31%.
Compared to last year, however, ninth and 10th graders saw performance improve 69%, while the average performance for sixth- to eighth-graders was 14%, and third- to fifth-graders improved 4%.
The district’s average performance from the first to final test of the year was 19% to 44% on English. Statewide, the end of year average performance was at 53% proficient.
On a separate writing exam, the districtwide average score was 5.9 points, the same as the state average, but 72% of the district scored 6 points or higher.
Math
Average English proficiency across the district was in the teens for the first progress monitoring test of the year. For math, it was mostly in the single digits. But that left even more room for improvement, and the third progress assessment showed that students did improve. In fact, the average Level 3 or higher performance in all grades, third through eighth, rose from 6% to 53% by the end of the year, which was just 3 percentage points lower than the statewide average.
Looking at the specific grades from the first to the third monitoring exam, third grade rose from 2% to 47%, fourth from 5% to 58%, fifth from 5% to 54%, sixth from 10% to 70%, seventh from 6% to 34% and eighth from 6% to 51% Not only was sixth grade’s performance a 60-percentage-point increase, it also beat the state average.
Performance of higher grades on algebra and geometry is still assessed by an end-of-course exam. Eighth-graders were 57% Level 3 or above, and ninth-graders were 23%, for an average of 31%. Eighth-graders did beat the state average.
In geometry, 49% of students tested were Level 3 or above over all, which was 4 percentage points behind the state average.
The state combined FAST exam and end-of-course exam performance to show an overall improvement in math from 39% to 49% from 2023 to 2024 for grades three through eight.
Science
Fifth- and eighth-graders were tested once on science proficiency, with 42% of Bradford fifth-graders and 41% of eighth-graders scoring Level 3 or higher. These percentages were both behind the state average, as were the older students tested in biology. Bradford biology students were 41% Level 3 or above, compared to 67% statewide.
Biology performance fell from 49% to 41% from 2023 to 2024, but fifth-grade science performance went from 34% to 42% and eighth-grade performance went from 26% to 41%, an improvement of 15 percentage points.
Social studies
There was improvement from year to year on the civics exam, although the U.S. History average fell one point. In civics, 53% scored Level 3 or higher and in history it was 56%. While among some of the higher proficiency scores in the district, they were both more than 10 points behind the state average.
More information regarding the outcomes of testing will be released, including school grades and improvement scores.
