JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval County Public Schools has now earned an A grade from the state for two years in a row, but a review of state test data shows many of the district’s middle school students are still struggling in reading and math.
State data reviewed for the 2024-2025 school year, the first year Duval earned an A, showed more than half of the district’s middle school students were not proficient in reading. A year later, scores improved, with just over half of students reaching proficiency.
The results were similar in math. In the 2024-2025 school year, more than half of Duval’s middle school students were not proficient. A year later, more than half of the district’s sixth and seventh graders were still not proficient.
When Duval’s test scores were compared to neighboring districts, the gaps were significant.
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In the 2025-2026 school year, the second year Duval earned an A, the district trailed Clay County by an average of 11 percentage points and St. Johns County by about 23 percentage points across middle school reading scores.
That same year, Duval trailed Clay County by about 15 percentage points and St. Johns County by 25 percentage points across middle school math scores.
Still, at the end of each school year, the state determined Duval, Clay and St. Johns had all earned an A district grade.
Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier pushed back on the comparison to neighboring districts, saying Clay and St. Johns are not apples-to-apples comparisons.
“I don’t think it’s always fair to make a comparison to a very urban, very diverse, wonderful community like Jacksonville is with bedroom communities that have different socioeconomic statuses and different impacts to how prepared their students come to the education system,” Bernier said.
Because of that, test scores were also reviewed in Hillsborough, Orange and Miami-Dade counties, districts more similar to Duval in size and student demographics. In those comparisons, the gaps were generally smaller, but Duval still trailed in most of the math and reading categories reviewed.
Bernier said those test scores are only one part of how the state calculates a district’s grade.
“There’s basically 12 separate boxes that make up a total point system,” Bernier said.
He said the formula includes reading, math, science and social studies, along with career and technical education certifications, acceleration points and graduation rates.
“Part of it is acceleration, how many of our students are taking advanced coursework. Part of it is about a 97.6% graduation rate,” Bernier said. “All of those combinations from reading, math, science, social studies, as well as CTE certifications, acceleration points and grad rate make up the whole picture of how a school district is graded.”
Patricia Levesque, CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, said what really boosted Duval’s grade was not a major increase in student performance.
“Duval County’s student performance didn’t really increase this year over last year by very much,” Levesque said. “But what boosted Duval County Schools’ grade was the pass rates on the Classical Learning Test.”
Levesque argues Florida’s grading scale sets the bar too low and said an easier, alternative test helped boost graduation rates.
She said district letter grades can offer a broad snapshot of performance, but they do not always tell parents how well students are actually reading or doing math.
“We need to do a better job of communicating exactly what it means and reporting data more transparently so parents actually know, well, what percent of kids in my district actually can read on grade level or doing math on grade level,” Levesque said.
That is why Levesque said parents should consider more than a district letter grade when evaluating their child’s education.
“The other really important signal is your child’s own test score,” Levesque said. “That should be telling you the objective information that you need to know about your own child.”
The Florida Department of Education was asked about Levesque’s comments that the state’s bar for an A is too low.
The state said districts have needed 65% of available points to earn an A, but that threshold is set to increase to 70% next year. Bernier said that means Duval will need 59 more points to keep its A grade.
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