JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Northeast Florida had the two best-performing school districts in the state on statewide exams designed to test skills in reading and math, data released on Wednesday showed.
The scores are related to the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) exams, which replaced the grade-level Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) in 2023.
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For the overall Grades 3-10 stats in English Language Arts, St. Johns and Nassau County public school districts led the state for the percentage of students performing at or above grade level.
St. Johns had 75% and Nassau had 72%.
There were two other area counties that were above the statewide percentage of 57%: Clay at 62% and Flagler at 58%.
Other remaining counties:
Alachua: 55%
Columbia: 54%
Union: 54%
Baker: 53%
Bradford: 53%
Duval: 50%
Putnam: 46%
In math, Nassau and St. Johns were once again the top two in the state for the percentage of students at or above grade level.
For Math, Nassau was on top with 80%, followed by St. Johns at 78%.
There were also four other area counties that were above the statewide percentage of 59% in math: Union (66%), Clay (64%), Flagler (61%), and Columbia (60%).
Other remaining counties:
Baker: 56%
Bradford: 56%
Duval: 53%
Alachua: 52%
Putnam: 46%
Last year, there were two area school districts with scores below 50% for both math and ELA: Duval and Putnam. This year, only Putnam is below 50% in both.
On Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated the results of the state’s “first-in-the-nation” progress monitoring system, which, for the third straight year, revealed that students continue to show improvements.
DeSantis was referencing the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) progress monitoring assessments, and End-of-Course (EOC) and Science assessments.
“Florida insists that education be factual, student-focused, and parent empowered,” DeSantis said in a news release. “Florida has led the nation in instituting progress monitoring assessments that allow for teachers and parents to provide real-time interventions that support the long-term success of their students, and our approach has paid off.”
Through progress monitoring, the state said teachers, students, and parents are provided real-time, immediate and actionable data at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to drive student achievement.
Here are some of the statewide highlights, according to DeSantis:
School Year Improvement
- Grades 3-10 English Language Arts (ELA): Performance increased by 21 percentage points from the beginning of the school year (PM1) to the end of the school year (PM3), with 57% of students scoring on grade level or higher in PM3 compared to 36% in PM1.
- Grades 3-8 Mathematics: Performance increased by 44 percentage points from PM1 to PM3, with 59% scoring on grade level or higher in PM3 compared to 15% in PM1.
Year-Over-Year Improvement
- Grades 3-10 ELA: 57% of students in grades 3-10 scored on or above grade level on the end-of-year progress monitoring assessment (PM3) in ELA in 2025, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2024 and 8 percentage points from 2023.
- Mathematics (PM3 and EOCs): 58% of students scored on or above grade level in Mathematics (PM3 and Mathematics End-of-Course (EOC) assessments) in 2025, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2024 and 7 percentage points from 2023.
End-of-Course Assessments and Science
- In Algebra 1, 57% of students statewide scored at or above grade level, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2024 and 7 percentage points from 2023.
- In Geometry, 54% of students scored at or above grade level, an increase of 2 percentage points from 2024 and 8 percentage points from 2023.
- In 5th Grade Science, 55% of students scored on or above grade level, an increase of 2 percentage points from 2024.
- In 8th Grade Science (including 8th Grade students who took the Biology 1 EOC), 53% of students scored on or above grade level, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2024.
- In Biology 1, 70% of students scored at or above grade level, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2024.
- In Civics, 70% of students scored at or above grade level, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2024.
- In U.S. History, 70% of students scored at or above grade level, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2024.
Student Subgroup Success
- Students with disabilities increased performance by 4 percentage points (25% to 29%) in Grades 3-10 ELA compared to 2024.
- Students from economically disadvantaged families increased performance by 3 percentage points (44% to 47%) in Grades 3-10 ELA compared to 2024.
- African American students increased performance at Level 3 or above in Grades 3-10 ELA compared to 2024 by 5 percentage points (40% to 45%).
- Hispanic students increased performance at Level 3 or above in Mathematics (Grades 3-8 and EOCs) compared to 2024 by 4 percentage points (51% to 55%).
- Students from economically disadvantaged families increased performance by 4 percentage points (59% to 63%) on the U.S. History EOC compared to 2024.
For more information about the 2024-25 assessments, available here.
