Florida updates passing scores for alternate high school graduation tests
By Jeffrey S. Solochek
Florida high school seniors now have more testing options to help them get a diploma.
The State Board of Education on Wednesday expanded the list of alternate exams available for students to meet their graduation requirements. A growing number of teens recently have come to rely on these options.
Just over 40% participated in 2024, up from 31% four years earlier.
The board also adopted a new set of passing scores for students who take alternatives to the state’s end-of-course algebra and 10th-grade reading exams. Some of the scores are higher than they were before. (See the rule and scores on the Department of Education’s website.)
Juan Copa, Florida deputy commissioner for accountability, told board members that the department was updating the scores based on data collected over two years of students taking the various tests. The goal is to make the scores equivalent regardless of which one the teens sit for.
“They are intended to provide an equally rigorous pathway,” Copa said.
The board aims to give students a variety of options for them to be successful, said Ben Gibson, the board’s chairperson.
That’s why the list of alternate exams grew to include the SAT-10, PSAT, PreACT and CLT-10.
“It’s not a watering down,” Gibson said. “We are maintaining accountability and high standards across the board.”
Even though the scores are rising in some categories — a passing mark on the CLT Quantitative Reasoning section would rise from 11 to 14, and to 490 from 480 on the SAT Reading and Writing section — the changes will not impact current seniors, who are grandfathered in for the previous scores.
They also would not affect students who already earned a passing score under the past rule.
“That achievement is not taken away,” Copa said.
In past years, the State Board faced angry students and parents after imposing new scores on teens who thought they had already achieved the mark.
The issue of whether new or old scores would count sometimes reached state lawmakers, who received furious phone calls from families that keenly watched the requirements as their children attempted to qualify for graduation.
This year, the state Senate proposed doing away with the testing requirement to earn a diploma. Florida is one of six states to retain such rules. But the House did not take up the measure.
Education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said he had seen students rise to the challenge of higher expectations in the past, when he served as chief of staff in the department. He predicted the same would occur again.
He also praised the expansion of test options, including broader use of the Classic Learning Test, which lawmakers approved in 2023.
“It’s CLT, not CRT,” Kamoutsas said, referring to the state’s push to eradicate critical race theory from classrooms. “I’m happy to stand by that.”