State Error Means More Than 200 Florida Schools Earned A Higher Grade

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Florida Department of Education officials said they issued incorrect grades for 213 schools. Those changes mean nine school districts also earned a higher grade.

The Florida Department of Education released big news late Friday evening: 213 elementary and middle schools had received incorrect grades and would be revised upward.

After revising the scores, 116 more Florida school earned an ‘A’ grade on the state report card. Seven schools moved to a ‘D’ from an ‘F’ grade.

The revisions also mean nine school districts will earn a higher grade as well. Those districts are Collier, Desoto, Gadsden, Hillsborough, Okeechobee, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco and Union.

The state did not say how the error was made, but here’s how Palm Beach County school officials described the problem to the Palm Beach Post:

The reason for the grading error lies in the way the state now calculates learning gains in its convoluted school grading formula, district officials said. This year, the state passed a rule saying that students who scored at levels 1 and 2 on last year’s FCAT and got a third more points than needed to be considered to have made learning gains on the FCAT this year, will get a “weighted” learning gains score.

Basically, if a student who scored at levels 1 or 2 last year made significant learning gains this year, his learning gains count as 1.1 points for his school, instead of just 1 point.

But when the state calculated those weighted points, it neglected to include students who last year were at levels 1 or 2 but this year scored in higher levels, said Mark Howard, the district’s director of research, evaluation and assessment.

Below is the full list of schools with grade revisions. You can sort the data by school district, school name or grade or search by name.

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