Duval school officials are taking a victory lap because the district got an “A” rating from the state for the first time in history.

The state ranks individual schools and also districts, giving them letter grades.

All of Northeast Florida now consists of A districts, in Duval, Nassau, Clay and St. Johns counties.

But the reason isn’t money, which liberals claim is the only way to improving educational outcomes.

The real reason is school choice, which liberals oppose.

Local school officials say:

• Duval earned a school district grade of A, demonstrating districtwide alignment in leadership, instructional quality, and student growth.
• The number of A, B, and C schools increased significantly, leaping from 91 percent last school year to 99 percent this school year.
• The number of A and B schools jumped to 65 percent, up from 46 percent last year.
• The number of D and F schools decreased sharply — from 12 (11 Ds and 1 F) last year to just two Ds this year and no F schools. Annie R. Morgan Elementary, which received an F last school year, jumped to a C. (Schols officials credit this to school-based leadership and “targeted turnaround support,“ whatever that is.)
• Graduation rates have climbed steadily among traditional public schools, rising from 86.5 percent in the 2014–15 school year to 95.3 percent today.

Schools are getting more money each year and have been for decades, but it has done little to improve test scores. Students have been given diplomas only to find that they could not read and write at college-entry level.

As studies have shown, it is the competition from other options that has brought about improvement.

At one time, government schools had a comfortable monopoly – and therefore no incentive to get better.

But during the administration of Gov. Jeb Bush, everything changed.

The legislature offered a choice, at first limited to students in low-income families. Many were trapped in failing schools, not having the choice of fleeing for good private schools. Tax credit scholarships made that an option for them.

The movement grew and other options were added.

Florida now has as many students exercising choice as it does in “traditional” schools. Students, families, taxpayers – and traditional schools – benefit from the change.

The only grousing comes from Democrats. Their party had relied from years on a cozy arrangement under which a Democrat-controlled legislature would throw money at the schools, primarily to boost teacher pay, and the powerful teacher unions would get a cut of those paychecks. Union bosses then would donate huge sums of money to the campaigns of Democrat politicians. Once elected they would renew the cycle.

But in the time of Bush the cycle was broken. State government now is in the hands of the Republican Party and fiscal sanity has returned. This year the legislature cut spending by $3 billion.

The next innovation to improve education should be to allow government schools to pay the best teachers more money. It is called merit pay and it is the way the rest of the nation works.

All teachers need to do now is show up for work and keep breathing. If better teachers were paid more there would be another incentive to do a better job.

Let’s keep up the good work.