Signed by Governor Ron DeSantis

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that establishes new state testing and education system standards in K-12 schools.

Highlights:

• Requires the State Academic Standards to include grade-specific curriculum for English language standards, science standards, mathematics standards, social studies standards, and visual and performing arts standards, determined by the State Board of Education (Sec. 8, Pg. 7).

• Requires the Commissioner of Education to establish a new statewide standardized assessment program aligned with the new aforementioned State Academic Standards (Sec. 12, Pg. 11).

• Requires participation in the new assessment program by all public school district students (Sec. 12, Pg. 11).

• Requires the statewide standardized English Language Arts (ELA) assessment to be administered to grades 3 through 10, and specifies that students must earn a passing score on the ELA in order to receive a high school diploma (Sec. 12, Pg. 12).

• Requires the statewide standardized Mathematics assessment to be administered to grades 3 through 8 annually (Sec. 12, Pg. 12).

• Requires the statewide standardized Science assessment to be administered at least once annually in elementary and middle school (Sec. 12, Pg. 12).

• *Specifies that beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, the end-of-year comprehensive progress monitoring assessment shall take the place of the standardized ELA and mathematics assessments administered to grades 3 through 10 and grades 3 through 8 respectively (Sec. 12, Pg. 12).

• Requires assessment results for the statewide standardized ELA and mathematics assessments to be made available no later than May 31, beginning with the 2023-2024 school year (Sec. 12, Pg. 16).

• Requires End-of-Course (EOC) Assessments administered online for subjects like algebra, geometry, biology, history, etc to be statewide, standardized, and developed or approved by the Department of Education (Sec. 12, Pgs. 12 & 13).

• Requires students enrolled in certain courses to take the associated standardized EOC assessment instead of the corresponding subject or grade level statewide standardized assessment (Sec. 12, pg. 12).

• Requires results for EOC assessments to be made available no later than June 30 (Sec. 12, Pg. 16).

• Authorizes the Commissioner to select 1 or 2 nationally developed comprehensive examinations to serve as a College Board Advanced Placement course, International Baccalaureate course, or Advanced International Certificate of Education course and EOC assessment (Sec. 12, Pg. 12).

• Requires all statewide EOC, ELA, mathematics, and science assessments to use a scaled score and achievement level ranging from level 1 to 5, with 3 being grade-level proficiency (Sec. 12, Pg. 14).

• Requires each school district to select either the SAT or ACT to administer to students in grade 11 beginning the 2021-2022 school year (Sec. 12, Pg. 13).

• Requires the assigned Individual Education Plan (IEP) team to waive any and all standardized assessments for certain students with disabilities if it is deemed that such assessments would not accurately measure the student’s ability even after accommodations (Sec. 12, Pg. 13).

• Requires the Department to develop the Florida Alternate Assessment for students with certain cognitive disabilities to measure the State Academic Standards (Sec. 12, Pg. 13).

• Requires coordinated screening and progress tracking in public schools and the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program (Secs. 5 & 13, Pgs. 5 & 26).

• Establishes the Council for Early Grade Success within the Department of Education to oversee coordinated screening and progress monitoring for K-3 and Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program students (Sec. 11, Pgs. 10 & 11).

• Requires the Commissioner to coordinate with the Council to implement screening and progress monitoring (Sec. 11, Pg. 11).

• Requires all students in virtual instruction programs to take the standard statewide assessments and participate in screening and progress monitoring (Sec. 4, Pg. 4).

• Requires local school boards to develop public awareness projects to distribute information about childhood development (Sec. 1, Pgs. 2 & 3).

• Requires local school boards to develop strategies to implement appropriate intervention techniques for students with learning disabilities in public and private early care and education programs and K-3 public and private schools (Sec. 1, Pg. 3).

• Requires public and private curriculums to be developmentally appropriate for instilling certain student progress as measured by coordinated screening and progress monitoring, which determines school performance (Sec. 6, Pg. 5).

• Requires each school district to develop a comprehensive plan of student progression (Sec. 13, Pg. 19).

• Authorizes dropout prevention service funding for students with low academic achievement among other characteristics (Sec. 9, Pg. 8).

• Prohibits public schools from suspending regular school programs in order to administer or prepare to administer standardized tests (Sec. 12, Pg. 15).

• Prohibits a school district from scheduling more than 5% of a student’s school year hours for standardized assessments, coordinated screening, and progress monitoring (Sec. 12, Pg. 17).

• Prohibits assigning students to a grade level solely based on age (Sec. 13, Pg. 22).

• Specifies that funding for the Florida Virtual School shall be provided by the General Appropriations Act, and requires full-time K-12 students in the virtual school to comply with all statewide assessments and progress monitoring (Sec. 3, Pg. 4). 

• Specifies that this act takes effect July 1, 2022 (Sec. 17, Pg. 30).

Full Bill Text