Rule 6A-1.09422: Establishing Concordant and
Comparative Scores for the B.E.S.T. Assessments
Rule Development Workshop Transcript
May 14, 2025

Title Slide
Good afternoon, and welcome to the State Board Workshop for Rule 6A-1.09422: Establishing Concordant and Comparative Scores for the B.E.S.T. Assessments. My name is Vince Verges, Assistant Deputy Commissioner in the Division of Accountability, Research, and Measurement, and I’m joined by Catherine Altmaier, our Policy and Process Support Manager, who will help facilitate this meeting, including reading any questions you may have at the end of the presentation.

This meeting is in listen-only mode for participants. However, you may input questions or comments in the chat feature at any time during the presentation. We’ll do our best to answer questions relevant to this specific Rule.

At the end of this presentation, we will provide a link where participants or anyone else interested in providing feedback on the proposed Rule may do so, and Catherine will place that link in the chat. Feedback may be submitted at any time up until the July 16th State Board of Education meeting where this Rule will be presented for approval. Also at the end of the presentation, Catherine will provide the link where the public may access the presentation being used for today’s workshop. 

Slide 2 – Title Slide on statutory Requirements

Slide 3 – Statutory Requirements
As a reminder, Florida law requires that students meet assessment graduation requirements in addition to meeting credit requirements. Students must pass the statewide, standardized grade 10 ELA assessment and the Algebra I EOC assessment, or earn a concordant or comparative score, in order to earn a standard high school diploma.

While there has been draft legislation in recent years, including the current legislative session, to potentially eliminate the assessment graduation requirements, there has been no change to these statutory requirements at this time. While the current legislative session has been extended to primarily address the state budget, there will be no further action in this session with regard to assessment graduation requirements.

Slide 4 – Concordant and Comparative Scores
According to state law, the Commissioner of Education must identify scores on the SAT and ACT that, if achieved, satisfy the graduation requirement that a student pass the grade 10 ELA assessment and the Algebra 1 EOC assessment. Although CLT is not addressed in this section of statute, the requirement to add CLT to this list was established during the 2023 legislative session, which will be discussed further on a later slide. 

Additionally, the Commissioner may identify scores on assessments other than these assessments, including, but not limited to, the grade 10 suite of assessments that correspond to SAT, ACT, and CLT.

Slide 5 – Title Slide on Current Concordant and Comparative Score Requirements

Slide 6 – Current Scores
The concordant/comparative scores currently established in Rule are aligned to student performance expectations for the Florida Standards Assessments, or FSA.

Now that we have transitioned to new FAST/B.E.S.T. assessments and a sufficient number of students have taken both the statewide assessments and national assessments, state law requires that we establish in Rule new concordant and comparative scores that are aligned to the expectations of the new assessments. 

As a reminder, concordant and comparative scores, by definition, are intended to be an equally rigorous achievement expectation as those that have been adopted by the State Board of Education for the statewide assessments. Concordant and comparative scores are not intended to be an easier pathway to meeting these requirements.

Slide 7 – Current Scores – ELA/Mathematics
This slide shows the current scores adopted in 2018 for both FSA Grade 10 ELA and FSA Algebra 1.

Slide 8 – Current Scores - Geometry
In July 2020, the State Board approved the statewide, standardized Geometry EOC assessment to be used as a comparative score for the Algebra 1 EOC. That provision is being recommended for continued use for the Geometry EOC aligned to the B.E.S.T. Standards.

Slide 9 – Current Scores – CLT
As alluded to previously, House Bill 1537 was adopted in 2023 and, among other measures, required the establishment of concordant and comparative passing scores for the Classic Learning Test, or CLT, to satisfy ELA and Mathematics assessment graduation requirements, beginning with students who entered grade 9 in the 2020–2021 school year.
Accordingly, the Rule currently under discussion was amended in July 2023, to include the CLT scores shown here.

Since the Department had no sets of matched data for students who took both the statewide assessments and the CLT at the time, the CLT scores adopted in 2023 were based primarily on external research provided by CLT, which linked their respective scores with scores on the corresponding sections of ACT and SAT.

Slide 10 – Title Slide - Proposed Concordant and Comparative Scores
The process used this winter and spring to arrive at the proposed scores is the same process that has been used each time that new concordant and comparative scores have been recommended for adoption. It involves the use of what is called an equipercentile statistical linking method. This method consists of analyzing a large, matched sample of Florida students who took one or more of the statewide assessments in grade 10 ELA and the Algebra 1 EOC aligned to the B.E.S.T. Standards, as well as one or more of the assessments being considered for use as concordant and comparative scores. The tests we now have matched data for include the ACT, SAT, CLT, and PSAT/NMSQT.

For other proposed tests that you will see shortly, if we did not have matched data, we relied on available data from the respective vendors and discussion with the vendors’ technical staff as needed to arrive at the recommended scores.

Slide 11 - Proposed ELA Concordant Scores
This slide shows the full suite of proposed assessments and concordant scores for the FAST Grade 10 ELA assessment.

This suite includes secure grade 10 versions of all three grade 11 tests for ELA; the same will be true for Mathematics, which we will discuss shortly.

The grade 10 and grade 11 suite of assessments offer multiple testing opportunities throughout the year, depending on the respective vendor’s administration schedule. Two secure grade 10 tests are being proposed for College Board assessments, namely the PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 because the PSAT/NMSQT is given only in the fall while PSAT 10 is given only in spring. 

Note you’ll see for the ACT, if the average of the two subject test scores results in a decimal of .5, the score is rounded up to the next whole number.

The scores for the English and Reading subject tests on the ACT or the Grammar/Writing and Verbal Reasoning subjects tests on the CLT are not required to come from the same test administration. Many of you know that this is commonly referred to as “superscoring.”

Slide 12 - Proposed Algebra 1 Comparative Scores
Just as with the proposed ELA concordant scores, the proposed suite for Mathematics includes secure grade 10 versions of all three grade 11 tests.

Again, the suite of proposed assessments offers multiple testing opportunities throughout the year, depending on the respective vendor’s administration schedule. Just as with ELA, two secure grade 10 tests are being proposed for College Board assessments in the PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 because one is given in the fall while the other is given in the spring.

Slide 13 - Rule Implementation Timeline
The proposed rule would allow students who entered grade 9 in the 2022–2023 school year, who would be seniors during the upcoming 2025–2026 school year, to use either the previous or the newly-adopted concordant/comparative scores to meet their assessment graduation requirements.

Students who enter grade 9 in the 2025–2026 school year, or students who entered grade 9 in the 2023–2024 through 2024–2025 school years and have not yet earned a concordant score by the time the rule becomes effective, would be required to use the B.E.S.T.-aligned concordant/comparative scores.

Once again, concordant and comparative scores, by definition, are intended to be an equally rigorous achievement expectation as those that have been adopted by the State Board of Education set for statewide assessments. Concordant and comparative scores are not intended to be an easier pathway.

Slide 14 – Thank You
This concludes the presentation portion of the Workshop. I will ask Catherine to please include the link (https://web02.fldoe.org/rules) to the formal Rule development comment page in the chat now, along with the link to where this presentation will be posted shortly following this meeting (http://www.fldoe.org/accountability/assessments/k-12-student-assessment/stard-setting.stml).

Additionally, we will provide these links in a follow-up communication to district assessment coordinators, and we will also provide that communication to our colleagues in other offices here at the Department so that they may also share it with their respective contacts in school districts.

If you wish to provide comments in the chat during this Workshop, those will be considered in the same way as comments provided formally through the link provided. Providing the same comments both formally and via the chat feature is acceptable but not required. 

We will now address comments and questions that have been entered. I’ll ask that Catherine read them aloud, and one of us will address them accordingly as we are able to. Please remember that we can only address questions and comments specifically related to Rule 6A-1.09422: Establishing Concordant and Comparative Scores for the B.E.S.T. Assessments.

Questions and Answers (responses edited for clarity)

(Question) When will the scores go into effect, and what cohorts will be affected by the new old concordance?
(Answer) If we look at slide 13, se see there the timeline cohorts and the effective dates.

(Question) Is there anything addressing CLT home testing?
(Answer) That's a good question. As we've said, our policy's been we accept scores that have been reported as valid and reliable by the assessment vendor. For example, if CLT reports a score to us and it's from an at-home test and they validate that is a valid score and they recognize it, then so too does the Department. So again, for whatever vendor, if they report a score as valid, we will accept it.

(Question) Are grade-level benchmark data provided by the testing vendor, SAT, ACT, CLT, considered when determining the concordant/comparative score?
(Answer) We do not. We go by, as I mentioned, the equipercentile linking method. We use matched samples. We take a look at all the scores that students obtain on the statewide assessment, match those to the scores that generally students will attain on one of the other assessments, and then we link the scores together that way. Purely statistical linking based on matched data sets, not anything reported by the vendors.

(Question) When does this rule go to the State Board of Education for approval, and is it effective once the State board approves it?
(Answer) The State Board of Education meeting is set for July 16th, and generally rules become effective about 30 days or so after being approved at the meeting. So, if approved, it should become effective sometime in mid-August.

(Question) Can you explain the difference between the old tables and the new? For example, which assessments were not included in the previous tables? Also, which scores are different?
(Answer) We did not provide a side-by-side comparison in that way. You can go into some of the old State Board workshops or the assessment Graduation Requirements document to see the old scores. What I will say generally is this is a much more comprehensive suite of assessments. There were some tests, for example the PSAT/NMSQT, that we previously allowed for Mathematics but not for ELA. Now the same tests that are available for one subject are all available for the other subject as well. For both ELA and Mathematics, we have the entire grade 10 suite of assessments and the entire grade 11 suite of assessments. Again, these are secure assessments we use. For example, the PreACT Secure as opposed to the paper-based PreACT that stays in the district, which is not considered secure. So the PreACT Secure is allowable, but PreACT is not allowable.

(Question) Will the graduation assessment requirement document be updated in mid-August also?
(Answer) Yes, we will definitely update that for back-to-school again. We can't do that until the scores are official, but we'll have it prepared and ready to go to get an updated version as soon as possible.

(Question) PreACT and PreACT Secure do not have different test codes, correct?
(Answer) That's something we'll have to research. We will make sure that we have the correct coding, or the coding to differentiate between the two for Appendix L of the Database Manual.

(Question) Is ACT non-college-reportable (NCR) still allowable?
(Answer) Again, although it's non-college-reportable, it's still reported as a valid score by these vendors. So it would be allowed because while it may not be college reportable, if it's a valid score, it can be used for concordant/comparative score purposes.

(Question) [asked following the conclusion of the recording] If one of the tests aren’t currently offered in our district, would we now be required to offer it?
(Answer) The only requirement is to offer ONE grade 11 test and ONE grade 10 test under the specific statutes (per sections 1008.22(3)(c) and 1007.35(5), F.S., respectively). There is no requirement to offer assessments outside of what a district has selected to meet these requirements.

Again with that, you'll have an opportunity to ask any other questions through the formal Rule comment process. And again, if you have other questions that aren't necessarily related to the rule itself, you can always e-mail us at Assessment@fldoe.org  or you can e-mail me directly (Vince.Verges@fldoe.org).

We thank you for participating, and we will have these posted and communications out as soon as we can.

Thank you everyone and have a good afternoon.