- July 13, 2026
When faced with a structure that requires high performance, human nature finds creative ways to meet that standard. Our Volusia County Schools district administration is exceptionally creative.
School and district grades are out. Volusia County Schools has received an A.
So did most of Florida’s schools. According to the Tampa Bay Times, 74% of Florida schools earned an A or B rating.
That’s great! Local governments, realtors, chambers of commerce, elected officials all love the high district grades that keep our property values up, and help us recruit new businesses.
Meanwhile, our enrollment is declining. School choice may be a factor, but why? We’re an A district.
In grading both school districts and students, an A is not what it used to be. Student proficiencies are calculated in a mind-numbingly complicated formula that includes all kinds of contexts and comparisons that bear no resemblance to the right-or-wrong answers and resulting scores that most of us knew as kids. A is not 95-100% B is not 88-94% C is not…you get the point.
Schools and districts are graded on achievement, learning gains, and readiness/outcomes, which includes graduation numbers. Out of a possible 1,200 district points, 64% is an A — also not like when we were kids.
One of the easiest ways for a district to increase its rating is to increase its percentage of graduating seniors who pass their final state tests, based on the number of ninth graders who finished school in four years. Each school is required to test at least 95% of its students. The higher those students score on the final tests, the better the overall school grade, and therefore the higher the district grade.
Theoretically, of course, we would assume that in order to graduate a high number of students with passing tests scores, they would have been at grade level throughout their K-12 experience. Not necessarily.
Some students get all the way to 12th grade but have never reached grade level. Their poor final test scores would hurt their school grade, and bring down the district grade.
We can’t have that. Volusia County Schools solved the problem by making creative use of Richard Milburn Academy (RMA), a charter school that is now co-located on most of our high school campuses. Students who are identified as unlikely to pass their final test, and therefore are less likely to graduate, are moved from their assigned school to the RMA program, sometimes with parents’ approval, although not always. That removes them from the number tested at their assigned school, which then helps that school reach its 95% minimum, and it raises the likely test average by removing the lower-scoring students from that calculation.
What happens at RMA? One former teacher describes it this way:
“Edgenuity is an online platform for coursework. A typical semester takes roughly 25-40 hours to complete. Courses at RMA on Edgenuity are stripped down to merely nothing except for the quiz. How does a student pass a quiz if the instruction video is taken out and not required to watch? This encourages students to guess or Google the answers and move along. They aren’t learning. An average Edgenuity course at RMA takes 5 hours to complete a semester of work.
“When teachers and administrators from traditional schools encourage these students to go to RMA, they are letting students know loud and clear that it doesn’t really matter if you LEARN. It diminishes everything that educators have tried so hard to teach. This message shows these students that it is okay to take the shortcut and the easy way out because the end result will be the same…a high school diploma, even if you didn’t have to do the work to earn it.”
According to US News and World Report, RMA students are 2% proficient in reading and math. They graduate anyway; their graduation rate is 77%. In 2019-2020, their enrollment was 283. Five years later, that number had exploded to 907.
Meanwhile, back at the district schools, our enrollment is down from five years ago, and our grades are up.
In 2019-2020, Volusia County Schools graduated 84.5% of our students. This year, our number was 95.6%. Our average proficiency numbers have consistently hovered in the general range of 50%-60%.
In short, we graduate 40%-50% of students who are not reading and doing math at grade level. The removal of RMA students into their own category is a very effective way to keep our numbers up, and our district grade at “A.”
The State of Florida created a well-intended structure that was meant to incentivize high performance. In some cases, it has instead incentivized ways to game the system so the adults look good. And campaign contributions from RMA interests are a nice touch too.
Editor's note: Volusia County Schools was given an opportunity to respond.
A recent op-ed on school and district grading and our partnership with Richard Milburn Academy (RMA) raises fair questions, but several of its core claims don't reflect how Florida's accountability system actually works. We want the public to have the full picture.
1. Grades are set by the state, not the district.
School and district grades are calculated using up to 12 statewide components under Rule 6A 1.09981, F.A.C., achievement, learning gains, acceleration, and graduation measures. The formula is set by the state and applied identically to every Florida district. No district, including ours, sets its own criteria.
2. RMA's outcomes remain part of our district accountability, and RMA serves a distinct population.
The op-ed's premise is that moving students to RMA improves district outcomes. It doesn't: RMA's assessment results, graduation outcomes, and accountability measures continue to count toward VCS's overall district performance. The state calculates district grades as if every student countywide, including those in our sponsored charter schools, is part of one combined school. It's also true that RMA is designed to serve students who are older, credit deficient, and in alternative education programs, which is the population the program exists to support. That population's results are not excluded from our accountability picture; they remain part of it.
3. The scale makes the claim implausible.
VCS serves roughly 60,000 students, and the state's 95% testing participation threshold requires testing at least 57,000 of them. RMA's cited enrollment of 907 students is about 1.5% of our total population, spread across more than 80 schools, far too small a share to meaningfully shift a districtwide calculation of this size.
4. Graduation rates and FAST proficiency measure different things.
Florida law provides multiple pathways to a diploma approved by the state, including concordant or comparative scores on the SAT, ACT, CLT, and PSAT alongside FAST results. Every VCS student, at a traditional high school or at RMA, must meet the same statutory requirements: 24 credits (or 18 under ACCEL/CTE), a cumulative 2.0 GPA, and passing scores on the Grade 10 FAST ELA and Algebra 1 EOC or an approved concordant score, per s. 1008.22, F.S. Comparing graduation rates directly to FAST proficiency rates does not capture the full picture of how students become eligible to graduate.
We welcome thoughtful discussion about student readiness, assessment performance, and how Florida measures student and district success. However, that discussion should begin with a clear and shared understanding of the state’s accountability system. Volusia County Schools remains committed to transparency and is prepared to provide Mrs. Brosemer with the applicable state statutes and calculation guides in greater detail.
