Only 37% of Florida students passed the state’s new civics literacy exam, so we challenged adults

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Only 37% of Florida high school students passed the state’s new civics literacy exam last school year.

In Duval, scores were even lower.

We posed one of the more basic questions on the exam to four random adults, and the results made that 37% passing rate for public school students look a bit better.

The question: Which person is considered to be the principal author of the U.S. Constitution? A. Thomas Jefferson, B. Richard Henry Lee, C. Benjamin Franklin, or D. James Madison?

All four people we asked responded to Thomas Jefferson, but the correct answer is actually James Madison.

“We all need to have an understanding of the government, even as adults, and I feel like that’s something we could all brush up on,” said Duval resident Allison Hayden.

In our area, St. Johns County had the highest pass rate at 57%, while Bradford performed the worst, with only 20% of students earning a passing score.

Duval only had 29% of students pass.

Andrew Spar, head of the Florida Education Association, said he’s not surprised to see passing scores fairly low in the exam’s first year, but he is optimistic that will change moving forward.

“We absolutely need to know how our government works, how you influence our government and how to vote, how to run for office, how to engage elected officials in dialogue. I think that’s all really important,” said Spar.

Questions on the exam span the governmental structures of ancient Greece and Rome to landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The questions aren’t directly tied to the public school curriculum.

Instead, the exam is given to see whether a student needs to take a civics class in college.

“So if you aren’t up to speed at the time you leave high school, you have another opportunity to get up to speed during university time,” said University of North Florida political science professor Sean Freeder.

Freeder teaches the course that students who don’t pass the exam in high school will have to take in college.

He said the questions on the exam are pretty advanced.

Still, he hopes passing rates do improve in the future.

“I’m hoping that we’re going to see more high school civics teachers teaching this. I’m hoping that we’re going to see the quality of those teachers just ramp up as this requirement is being used,” said Freeder.

We asked the Florida Department of Education how it plans to get scores up going forward.

The department pointed out the civics test scores that actually track learning progress are the end-of-course exams.

This past school year, 69% of students passed that test — an increase of 5 percentage points over the year prior.

Looking ahead, the department said the state’s revised civics standards will be fully implemented in the 2023-2024 school year.

The state is also expanding the Florida Civics and Debate Initiative, which is currently implemented in 237 schools across 45 school districts.

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