The Florida Board of Education voted today unanimously to lower the passing grade for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test writing exam. Preliminary results showed only about a third of students had passed, down from 80 percent in 2011.
The 2011 test is more difficult and the board raised last summer the passing grade from 3.5 to 4–on a scale of 1-6.
Dropping the passing grade to 3.5 somewhat improves the percentage passing for the exam: 48 percent for 4th grade, 53 percent for 8th grade and 60 percent for 10th grade.
The board went even further and dropped the passing grade to Level 3 which gets the 2012 percentages more in line with last year:
Level 3 or higher
4th grade: 81 percent
8th grade: 77 percent
10th grade: 84 percent
