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A Primer on Florida FAST: What, When, Why, and How It’s Going

What Is Florida FAST?

The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) is Florida’s statewide through-year assessment system for reading and math. It replaced the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) beginning in the 2022–23 school year.

FAST provides three testing opportunities per year for grades 3–10 in reading and grades 3–8 in math. Each test builds on the previous one, allowing the state to track student growth across the school year.

Image Alt Text Alt Text: "An educator and school administrator reviewing real-time student performance data on a laptop, while students work independently in the background. The scene illustrates the transition from high-stakes testing to instructionally supportive data use in the classroom.

Who Develops and Delivers It?

  • The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) designs the test, develops items, and manages scaling and psychometrics.

     

  • Cambium Assessments, the same vendor that delivers the FSA, provides the online testing platform.

     

Teachers and parents receive immediate feedback after each administration, including percentile ranks and scale scores.

Why Through-Year Testing?

Florida sought to reduce stress and improve alignment between testing and instruction. Traditional end-of-year tests offered little value for teachers trying to adjust instruction midyear.

The FAST model aims to:

  • Measure growth over time, not just final proficiency.

  • Provide real-time data to support instruction.

Ensure student familiarity with testing format through shorter, lower-stakes checkpoints.

When Are the Tests Administered?

FAST checkpoints occur in three windows:

  1. Beginning of Year (BOY): Establishes baseline.

  2. Middle of Year (MOY): Measures progress and identifies gaps.

  3. End of Year (EOY): Provides final growth score for accountability.

Each window lasts several weeks, giving schools flexibility in scheduling.

How Is It Going So Far?

Early feedback from districts is positive:

  • Teachers report more useful data earlier in the year.

  • Students show less anxiety about shorter assessments.

  • Administrators appreciate the growth-focused accountability.

However, psychometric researchers note the difficulty of equating scores across multiple administrations. The state continues refining statistical scaling to ensure fairness and accuracy.

The Instructional Opportunity

FAST provides snapshots three times per year—but true instructional improvement requires daily data between checkpoints.

Classwork.com complements FAST by giving teachers ongoing insight into student understanding. Teachers can create and autograde formative tasks aligned with the same standards measured in FAST, ensuring consistency between classroom learning and statewide assessment.

FAST measures growth; Classwork.com helps teachers build it.

Conclusion

The Florida FAST system represents a bold step toward continuous assessment. It’s not perfect, but it demonstrates what’s possible when a state aligns testing with learning.

As other states follow suit, the lessons from FAST—about comparability, teacher engagement, and classroom alignment—will shape the future of through-year assessment across the nation.

References

  • Florida Department of Education. (2023). Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) Overview. https://www.fldoe.org

  • Cambium Assessments. (2023). FAST Administration Manual. https://flfast.org

  • Center for Assessment. (2023). Psychometric Considerations in Through-Year Testing.

  • RAND Corporation. (2023). Evaluating Through-Year Assessment Systems.

 This article is part of The Future of Instructionally Supportive Assessment white paper. Read the full series here.

What makes Florida FAST different from the old FSA testing model? The primary difference is the frequency and intent of the assessments. The Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) was a single, high-stakes “snapshot” taken at the end of the year. In contrast, Florida FAST (Assessment of Student Thinking) is a through-year progress monitoring system that tests students three times a year (Fall, Winter, and Spring). This allows teachers to track academic growth in real time and adjust instruction while the school year is still in progress.

 
Who is required to take the FAST assessments? FAST is administered to a wide range of students across the state. It covers English Language Arts (ELA) Reading for students in VPK through Grade 10 and Mathematics for students in VPK through Grade 8. For younger students in VPK through Grade 2, the assessment often focuses on foundational skills like early literacy and numeracy to ensure they are on track for success in later grades.
 

How is the “computer-adaptive” nature of FAST beneficial for students? Unlike traditional paper-and-pencil tests where every student sees the same questions, FAST is computer-adaptive. This means the test difficulty adjusts based on the student’s previous answers. If a student answers correctly, the next question becomes more challenging; if they struggle, it becomes easier. This provides a more precise measurement of a student’s specific skill level and reduces the frustration of facing questions that are far above or below their current ability.

 

When and how do parents and teachers receive FAST results? One of the major benefits of FAST is the speed of feedback. Unlike the months-long wait times of the past, results are typically available immediately or within a few days of testing. Teachers can access data through their instruction portals to regroup students for interventions, and parents can view their child’s scale scores and percentile ranks through the state’s Family Portal or district systems like Skyward or Focus.