More Florida High Schools Earn ‘A’ Grade

designer.eb / Flickr

More Florida high schools earned A grades this year.

Nearly half of Florida high schools earned an ‘A’ grade and fewer schools earned failing marks, according to Florida high school report cards released Friday.

The grades were aided by a number of changes approved by the State Board of Educations. The board lowered the passing grade on the state writing test, suspended the penalty for schools whose lowest-performing students did not improve their scores and only allowed school grades to drop by a maximum of one letter.

This year 47 percent of high schools earned an ‘A,’ up from 31 percent last year. ‘B’ grades did the opposite — down to 31 percent from 47 percent last year.

“The school board and I are extremely proud of our teachers, students, and school leaders who work hard to meet or exceed goals,” Orange County superintendent Barbara Jenkins said in a statement.  “We…realize that our high school grades next year may look different as we incorporate end-of-course assessments for biology and geometry. We are diligently preparing for Common Core and fully implementing the standards that help ensure our students are ready to compete in a global economy.”

The number of schools earning an ‘F’ grade declined to three from six. The number of ‘D’ school declined to 14 from 25.

The grades are still preliminary and schools have the option of appealing their grade.