In Florida, a debate is ongoing that should be ongoing in many other states. Are grades on the Big Standardized Test good for anything except politics? Reposted with permission.
The Commissioner “Stasi” calls school grades proof of progress. Jeb’s Foundation calls them inflated. So which is it—and why don’t private schools get graded at all?
Every morning, I check the Tampa Bay Times’ Education Gradebook, a roundup of Florida education news curated by the Times’ excellent education reporter, Jeff Solochek. It’s a consistently informative way to keep up with education developments across the state.
Today’s roundup featured two conflicting takes on Florida’s school accountability system:
First, The Florida Voice Education highlighted a radio interview with Florida’s new Education Commissioner, Anastasios (Stasi) Kamoutsas. He cited recent school grades—showing fewer D and F-rated schools—as “absolute proof” that school choice and Governor DeSantis’ progress monitoring system are working. “I’m not going to be satisfied until that number [of D and F schools] is at zero,” Kamoutsas declared.
Meanwhile, a WPTV piece quoted Nathan Hoffman, senior legislative director for Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, saying that those same school grades are inflated. Hoffman argued that “ideally” there should always be D and F schools: “We want to see a bell curve,” he said. “Some schools at the front end—A and B—some at the back—D and F—and a bunch in the middle.”
So which is it? Are too many D and F schools a problem, or is not having enough of them a problem?
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m no fan of Florida’s test-driven school grading system. It rarely reflects what’s actually happening inside a school. More often, it mirrors the socioeconomic status of the students—and comes at far too high a cost, draining joy and creativity from classrooms by over-focusing on endless standardized testing.
Worse, in this new era of Universal School Choice, only public schools are ranked by this this school grade system. Private schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers face no such accountability. If school grades are essential for transparency and performance improvement, why do they apply only to public schools?
During the 2025 legislative session, Rep. Susan Valdés introduced a bill that would have aligned Florida’s school grading scale with the typical classroom scale—90+ for an A, 80–89% for a B, and so on. Had it passed (thankfully, it died in committee), the number of A-rated schools would have dropped dramatically, and the number of failing schools would have soared.
Who supported the bill? Jeb’s Foundation. Hoffman testified in favor of it, saying Florida has “taken their eye off the ball” and become too “heavily weighted toward the front end of the scale,” with too many A and B-rated schools.
Again, which is it?
When the same school grades are used both to celebrate success and to argue for failure, it’s hard to know what they actually represent. Are school grades meaningful tools for accountability—or just convenient instruments for political messaging?
And which narrative will win out? Will Jeb Bush’s Foundation convince lawmakers that too many A and B schools mean we need to raise the bar? Or will Governor DeSantis’ handpicked Commissioner persuade them that success means ultimately eliminating all D and F schools?
Either way, if the state truly believed in accountability, it wouldn’t exempt private schools receiving public voucher dollars from the grading system entirely. At this point, school grades seem less like tools to inform families—and more like instruments to advance political agendas.