For more than 40 years, Florida’s public high school students have needed to pass state language arts and math exams to graduate. Now, as more students struggle to pass the tests and the bar is set to get higher, some lawmakers want to scrap that requirement.
Nearly 43% of the class of 2024 graduated from high school without passing one or both of Florida’s high-stakes graduation exams that test Algebra 1 and 10th-grade language arts knowledge, state data shows. Instead, they got diplomas by substituting failing scores on those state tests with passing marks on other exams.
Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, is pushing the change — as he did unsuccessfully last year . His bill (SB 166) would mean students would not have to pass those two tests to graduate, though scores from the exams would figure into their final course grades…