Third grade students who were able to attend in-person teaching had “more consistent learning outcomes” in English Language Arts (ELA), according to the Florida Department of Education (FDOE).
The FDOE made the announcement Tuesday based off the third grade ELA Florida Standards Assessments (FSA).
Findings from the initial results indicate that districts with higher rates of in-person instruction had more consistent learning outcomes between 2019 and 2021 (state tests were not administered in Spring 2020).
Overall, the number of students that performed at Level 3 and above (on grade level and above) decreased by 4 percentage points compared to 2019 (58% to 54%).
The press release highlighting the announcement credits Governor DeSantis’ efforts in authorizing districts to open schools, which allowed Florida parents the option to send their kids to school as opposed to online learning. The release states, “The results illustrate that Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran exhibited remarkable leadership while continuing to make the right decisions when fighting to provide parents with the choice to send their children to in-person learning.”
In addition to in-person teaching, parents, school districts, and Florida leaders had access to what the FDOE called, “state-of-the-art progress monitoring systems to provide almost real-time feedback.” These systems analyze a student’s deficiencies and in turn develops specific support that is intended to improve their individual achievement. The release states, “The initial results suggest that progress monitoring data has been highly accurate by substantially predicting student assessment scores prior to testing.”
“We continued to work with districts to get struggling students on campus full-time to stop learning loss and the possibility of widening achievement gaps. With overwhelming data to support our decisions, we stood firm for our students, families and their teachers. We can now say without hesitation that this generation of Florida’s K-12 students are positioned for success better than any other state in the nation,” DeSantis stated in the release.
In 2021, 97% of third grade students in Florida took the FSA in-person. Another statistic that came from the results indicate that African American and Hispanic students experienced a 3% decline in learning achievement, while White students experienced slightly more of a decline at 4%.
A clearer picture of how Florida K-12 students performed in 2021 and currently stand academically will be revealed when the next round of FSA are published. This will happen no later than July 31st, 2021, as required by FDOE Emergency Order 2021-01.
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Casey Owens is a contributing writer for The Florida Capital Star. Follow him on Twitter at @cowensreports. Email tips to [email protected].Â
