Back in the 1990s, Florida had a reputation -- deserved or not -- for graduating too many kids who couldn't read or write. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who saw himself as an education innovator, hit on a grand plan to make schools accountable.

He called it the A+ Plan for Education.

It morphed into the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and took on newfound importance: Schools would be assigned a letter grade, A through F, based on exam scores.

A decade later, the FCAT and school grades -- along with a host of other changes -- have placed Florida front and center in the educational reform movement.

``Florida has the strongest accountability system in the country,'' said Stacey Rutledge, assistant professor in educational leadership and policy at Florida State University. ``Teachers and principals -- the entire rhythm of their lives is based on this. Things like housing prices are linked to school grades.''

Which is not to say everyone likes the system. Many parents, teachers, principals and students despise grades because of the stigma D's and F's place on schools labeled failing. They deplore a culture of high-stakes testing that dictates what gets taught in the classroom.

And state high school graduation rates are still near bottom.

But there have been accomplishments: Students' scores on standardized tests have improved. And Florida has been lauded for closing the gap between white and minority students.

Here, on the 10-year anniversary of Bush's plan for remaking education, is a look at its dramatic impact on the state.

SCHOOL GRADES BETTER

Since Florida began grading schools in 1999, the percentage of schools receiving A's and B's has more than tripled from 21 percent to 79 percent. The proportion of D and F schools dropped from 28 percent to 7 percent. The improvement came even as the state continually raised the standards on which the grades would be based, affording the schools little time or resources to adapt.

``Lots of people thought grading schools would hurt public education,'' Bush told The Miami Herald in an e-mail message. ``Instead, students, parents, teachers and principals rose to the challenge and exceeded expectations.''

Florida was the first state -- and is still the only one -- to grade schools. On a smaller scale, some individual districts, including New York City, have modeled parts of their school grading systems after Florida.

The state was ahead of the curve in creating its model, though others have since caught up -- as has the federal government, implementing its data-driven No Child Left Behind law in 2002.

Critics say improved school grades show only that students are getting better at the FCAT, not that they are necessarily learning more. But students have also improved their scores on other standardized tests they don't prepare for.

One of them -- the National Assessment of Educational Progress, billed as ``the nation's report card'' -- showed 70 percent of Florida fourth-graders reading at grade level in 2007, compared with 53 percent in 1998.

Those results lifted Florida's national ranking. In 1998, Florida placed 35th on the fourth-grade reading test. The state ranked 22nd in the same category in 2007, though the results have been less stellar in math and in eighth grade.

Bush called the state's reforms ``a national model for raising achievement,'' but added they are not sufficient for students competing with their peers around the globe -- though he will be pushing other states to adopt parts of the A+ plan this fall.