In 2010, when I began teaching in Florida, the school I was assigned to earned a “D” letter grade and only 28% of my high school students were reading on grade level.
For the 2024-2025 school year, that school has earned an “A,” yet only 28% of students are reading on grade level. More than 15 years ago, I witnessed students struggle with basic reading skills such as decoding words, phonics and comprehension. These challenges, despite what the recent grade reflects, still persist today.
In 2024, 67% of Florida fourth graders — or two out of every three — were not proficient in reading. A higher percentage of Florida students are not reading proficiently today than in 2019, when 62% were reading below grade level.
In a surprising contrast to the state’s low literacy scores, 44% of Florida’s public schools were awarded an “A” grade from the Florida Department of Education.
This incongruity should lead parents, educators, advocates and taxpayers to question whether the state government prioritizes student success or a ranking system that allows it to tell a misleading story about public education in Florida.
Our kids are not learning to read — a foundational skill linked to lifetime economic success and overall health, while illiteracy correlates to higher rates of incarceration and poverty.
There is a disconnect between a system that awards high grades to nearly half the state’s schools while two-thirds of students are unable to read. Florida’s school grading system reinforces low expectations through benchmarks that do not equip students with the basic skills they need to succeed.
For example, one of the 12 factors in Florida’s academic grading system is “learning gains,” a unique criteria for the lowest-performing 25% of students. While it is important to acknowledge progress and the systemic cultural and political disparities that negatively affect test scores, it should not be confused or misrepresented for mastery.
Florida’s education crisis — and how the state chooses to address it — will have a direct impact on our future. This is especially critical now since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to effectively dismantle the federal Department of Education, inevitably shifting more responsibility and autonomy to the states. The administration fueling this decision says it intends to cede full control of public education to the states, making Florida’s approach to education and to evaluating schools more consequential than ever.
With funding cuts to AmeriCorps, which has decreased the number of tutors and other support services that fill education gaps, along with book bans and the assault on libraries, we are losing critical tools, methods and avenues that help our children learn how to read.
While Florida has commendably taken steps to create ever-expanding paths to the workforce for high school graduates and is getting recognition for aspects of its education system, our students are unprepared for the future if they do not have basic reading skills. Investments to sustain a workforce are window-dressing if students cannot meet the standards of these jobs.
Florida should use its increased autonomy to invest in real student outcomes, not ranking schools according to misleading criteria.
Fostering literacy for all students must be a chief priority of Florida’s public education system. Instead of teaching to a test, we should be ensuring that every student can read and write at a level that enables them to fulfill their potential — and to build a thriving career that meets the demands of today’s labor market.
Our success is measured in the futures of young people, not in the letter grades awarded to schools.
Kamali Burke is a senior vice president at Fenton, the social change agency, where she specializes in media relations, branding, project management and strategic marketing communications. She resides in Miami and taught at Miami Northwestern and Miami Edison Senior High Schools.
