Class of 2023 SAT results show that Florida high school graduates are weak in math

On the average, Florida high school graduates are weak in math.

That’s probably not the story you are used to hearing about Florida’s K-12 students. But that doesn’t make the statement any less true.

Last week, the College Board released its report on the SAT results for the nation’s high school graduating Class of 2023. Florida is one of twelve states in which 90% or more of the graduates had taken the SAT. While it wouldn’t be fair to compare Florida’s math results to those of states in which only a small percentage of the graduates had taken the SAT, it is quite fair to compare Florida’s high school grads with those of the other eleven states where 90% or more took the test.

That comparison is not pretty. The first plot below shows how Florida compares to those other eleven states on the mean score for the math section. The second shows how our state compares to the others on the percentage of students who matched or exceeded what the College Board calls a “College and Career Readiness Benchmark” score in math, which is 530.

So why do we often hear that Florida is doing great in math? If you’ve heard that story, it is based on the results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for math in 4th grade. Among the twelve states that we’ve been looking at, Florida had the highest percentage of 4th graders rated proficient or advanced on the 2022 NAEP math exam, as you can see here.

But by 8th grade, Florida’s students fall way off the pace in math, as the 2022 NAEP math exam for 8th grade shows.

And this year’s SAT results show that by the time Florida’s students graduate from high school, even the students from Delaware and the District of Columbia have caught up to them or even passed them.

It’s a sad state of affairs.

What should Florida’s educational leaders do? The solution is clear – do whatever it takes to attract more individuals who are strong in math to join Florida’s teaching corps. But whether our state’s leaders have the will to do that is, unfortunately, doubtful.