School

Report: Walton County ranks No. 1 in Florida education for second consecutive year

The Florida Policy Institute evaluated four key criteria: preschool enrollment, standardized test scores in English and math, and graduation rates.

Jared Williams

For the second year in a row, Walton County has earned the top spot in education across Florida, according to the Florida Policy Institute’s 2025 Child Well-Being Index.

The non-partisan research organization evaluates all 67 Florida counties using four specific criteria: the percentage of 3 and 4-year-olds not enrolled in school, fourth-grade English Language Arts scores, eighth-grade math scores, and high school graduation rates.

The Florida Policy Institute (FPI) specifically examines the percentage of students not performing at grade level on the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) tests, combining students scoring in levels 1 and 2 for their calculations.

Eighth-grade mathematics is calculated using the third Progress Monitoring interval, while graduation data measures the percentage of students who graduate within four years of their first full year in ninth grade.

“Accolades are always wonderful, but it is important to look further to see the students, teachers, staff, and administrators who work tirelessly to create the conditions that lead to these wonderful accolades,” said Superintendent A. Russell Hughes. “We are fortunate to have the best students in the country here in Walton County, and a school board to match.”

The district has made remarkable progress since 2017, climbing from 35th to 3rd in the state for academic testing, according to the District. During this period, the graduation rate has improved by more than 20 percentage points.

FPI is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing accurate data that informs policy changes to improve the lives of all Floridians. The Child Well-Being Index ranks counties from 1 (best) to 67 (worst) across four categories: education, economic well-being, health, and family and community factors.

In its methodology, the Florida Policy Institute converts all data to ratios by county, allowing for fair comparisons regardless of population size. Lower numbers are considered better in their scoring system, with counties ranked based on their overall performance across 16 indicators of child well-being.

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