Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) celebrated the nearly one million Florida students deemed at or above their respective grade levels in the state’s new system, which shifts away from end-of-year testing.

The 2024-25 school year reported that 57% of Florida students performed at their grade level or higher. This was 114,000 more students than the previous school year, when only 36% of students had reached their grade level performance.

Recommended Stories

• Firing Columbia University president would send 'stern message': Joe Concha
• Over 175 Democrats join amicus brief to oppose dismantling Education Department
• UPenn to ban transgender athletes and erase swimmer Lia Thomas's records

DeSantis credited a focus away from one final test at the end of the year during a press conference on Monday. 

“So, we did see an issue with so much emphasis being placed on one high-stakes end-of-year test,” DeSantis said.

“Not only for just teaching to the test, which they would do for like the last couple weeks of the school year, but also if a student does poorly on the end-of-year test, well, they’re in summer when you get the results. So, how are you going to remediate that?”

Governor DeSantis Highlights K-12 Education Success in Florida https://t.co/IKveae1UoM

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 7, 2025

Instead, schools shifted to what DeSantis called “progress monitoring testing,” where students take the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking three times during the school year. The results throughout the year inform the teachers which students are on track and which are not.

The majority of schools, 71%, received an “A” or “B” grade from the Florida Department of Education. Schools achieve these grades when a majority of their students achieve their achievements across four subjects: English, math, science, and social studies, along with other factors.

The governor spoke from Ocean Way Elementary School, which progressed from a “B” school last year to an “A” school this year.

OVER 175 DEMOCRATS JOIN AMICUS BRIEF TO OPPOSE DISMANTLING EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

“In raw numbers, that means nearly 200,000 more students were enrolled in ‘A’ and ‘B’ schools in the past academic year than in the previous academic year. So that’s some real numbers,” DeSantis said.

This is the second full school year that the monitoring system has been in effect in Florida.