Introducing the B.E.S.T. Standards

On January 31, 2019, Governor DeSantis issued Executive Order 19-32, outlining a path for Florida to improve its education system by eliminating Common Core and paving the way for Florida students to receive a world-class education to prepare them for jobs of the future. The task from Governor DeSantis to Commissioner Corcoran was clear: Create literacy standards for our Florida students that will shape their education and secure their position as leading the charge to make Florida the most literate state in the nation. The outcome is Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards for English Language Arts (ELA), a product of Florida literacy experts, Florida educators, and vested stakeholders.

The state has provided a Suggested Reading List (SRL) for each grade level. At this point, it is our understanding that students will be assessed on at least 30% of the texts on the SRL on the end-of-year state standardized assessment. Some of the texts on the SRL are well-known while others are not. Some of the texts have also shifted grade levels, which will require teachers to make significant adjustments in instruction.

It is impossible to read every single text on the SRL, especially if you teach multiple grade levels. Therefore, we have created a podcast, "Most Likely To Read," to help familiarize you with some of the texts on the SRL. This podcast is informal and will provide you with a very brief overview of the text, some things we find interesting about the text, and we will give each text a superlative just for fun. We will also provide some resources (e.g., additional texts, multimedia resources, etc.) that might help as you plan your instruction.