Interestingly, the bottom ten spenders had a higher average academic letter grade than those in the top ten. However, many of the top spenders in the state are tiny rural districts with fewer than 50 students. That raised an important question: Would this pattern hold when comparing districts of a similar type?

Table 1 begins to answer that question by focusing specifically on suburban and city districts—schools that are far more comparable in size and structure, but still vary widely in student demographics. It should be noted that Table 1 includes non-current spending items like interest and capital outlay (such as constructing a new gym, renovations, etc.).

For reference, in the 2023-24 school year, the average expenditure per student was around $19,500. Of that, about $15,900 were current expenditures and $3,600 were non-current expenditures.

Source: MOSchoolRankings.org

Interestingly, the five highest-performing school districts in the state are split between the highest and lowest total spenders. Table 1 suggests that it is overly simplistic to assume that more money per student automatically leads to better academic outcomes.

Consider Valley Park and Park Hill as examples. Both spend relatively high amounts per student (including non-current expenditures) and serve comparatively lower shares of low-income students, yet neither achieves top-tier academic results. Meanwhile, several lower-spending districts of similar demographics earn strong academic grades.

This does not mean funding is irrelevant, but rather that the process of producing strong academic outcomes is complex and money isn’t everything.

The post The Wide Difference in Spending Per Student in Missouri’s Suburban Schools appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We’ve written a lot at the Show-Me Institute lately about A–F letter grades for public schools. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will soon begin assigning these grades to all schools and districts under an executive order from Governor Kehoe. Legislation to codify the order may follow, depending on how the 2026 session unfolds.

A central component of these letter grades is student growth. Growth measures how much students learn over the course of a year, based on state assessments. To estimate growth, the state uses a statistical model to generate a “predicted” level of progress for each student. Schools and districts are then evaluated based on how their students perform relative to those predictions. In simple terms, high-growth schools are those where students consistently outperform expectations. You can read more about the Missouri Growth Model here.

I’ve studied academic growth extensively and believe it is the most accurate indicator of school effectiveness we have. No other measure comes close.

New evidence in support of this view comes from a study by researchers at MIT. The study compares test-score growth to a popular alternative for evaluating school quality: schoolwide surveys. The authors assess how well growth-based and survey-based measures predict important student outcomes, including high school graduation, graduating with distinction, and college enrollment and persistence.

The MIT study was conducted in New York City, where the district administers surveys to students, families, teachers, and staff. The surveys are designed to capture school climate across several domains: rigorous instruction, teacher collaboration, supportive environments, and trust. School surveys are intuitively appealing, especially for those who are skeptical of standardized tests. But how do they stack up to growth when it comes to identifying schools that produce strong outcomes for students?

The answer: not very well. The surveys are a little better at predicting high school graduation, but much worse at predicting more meaningful and differentiated outcomes including graduating high school with an advanced diploma, enrolling in college, and persistence in college. The authors conclude: “From the point of view of parents seeking to boost their children’s odds of going to college, test information is most valuable.”

The research evidence on the value of student growth as an indicator of school quality is overwhelming. This is just the newest study to add to the list. School surveys are nice, but when it comes to identifying effective schools, objectively measured growth is far superior.

The post Test-Score Growth Is the Best Metric We Have for Understanding School Performance appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While the Missouri Legislature continues to debate A–F school report cards, the Show-Me Institute recently released our annual report card update on MOSchoolRankings.org.

Our rankings are built on a model that incorporates 10 academic indicators of student success. All data are sourced from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), and all English/language arts (ELA) and math scores are based on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). Each component is weighted equally, and a full explanation of the methodology is available online.

Table 1 shows all 24 public school districts and charter schools that received an “A” in the 2024–2025 school year.

Suburban and rural districts dominate the top rankings, with numerous districts from St. Louis County (Ladue, Brentwood, Clayton). Many of the rural school districts are exceptionally small: Skyline has 81 students and Thornfield has 48. The largest school district on the list is Nixa Public Schools (near Springfield) with 6,518 students.

The suburban districts have relatively low rates of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL)—a common proxy for school poverty rate. Fewer than 10 percent of Ladue and Clayton students were eligible for FRPL, with Brentwood at 18 percent, Nixa at 26 percent, Festus at 28 percent, and Ozark at 35 percent. However, some rural “A” districts have a sizeable number of lower-income students.

Mansfield R-IV, which had 60 percent of its 622 students qualify for FRPL, performed above average in almost every single category (except in ELA growth). Richwoods R-VII, a small rural district about an hour from St. Louis, had 100 percent of its 125 students qualify for FRPL and had particularly impressive scores in math. These examples demonstrate that low-income schools can achieve academic success.

There is a lot more to delve into for academic performance. Table 1 is just one snapshot of what is available on MOSchoolRankings.org. Accountability tools like these can help highlight success stories, identify areas for improvement, and provide a clearer picture of how schools across Missouri are performing.

The post Looking at Missouri’s “A” Districts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Missouri House of Representatives recently passed a bill requiring that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) assign A–F letter grades to schools and districts statewide. The bill now heads to the Senate, which is also considering its own version.

The legislation is meant to build on and improve Governor Kehoe’s executive order from January. Unfortunately, it does not improve on the executive order; in fact, the version that emerged from the House is much worse.

The main problem with the House bill is that it has veered off topic. Governor Kehoe’s short and simple executive order mandates letter grades based on academic performance. This is what we need. The House bill adds language that would create new school climate ratings based on surveys of teachers, parents, and students, which would also go on the report card.

This is problematic for three reasons:

Most importantly, it will distract us from academic outcomes. Academics are where our schools are struggling, and until we focus on them, the situation is not going to improve. This is illustrated most easily with data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which is widely viewed as providing the most credible test data in the country. Here are charts showing changes over time in Missouri’s national rank on NAEP, in 4th- and 8th-grade reading, since about the turn of the century:

Our 4th-grade reading results are especially bleak—we rank 38th out of the 50 states as of 2024, whereas two decades earlier we ranked in the low twenties. Today, an alarming 42 percent of our 4th graders score Below Basic on NAEP.

Making matters worse, our ranking decline since about 2015 is in the context of generally declining test scores nationwide. Our scores are declining faster than the rest of a declining nation.

Governor Kehoe was correct to focus on academic outcomes, and the focus should stay that way.

Unlike data on academic achievement, which we already collect, survey data for this new school-climate requirement do not exist. It is difficult to develop and implement a high-quality survey with a high response rate. Have our lawmakers considered how we would get these surveys done?

As one of several concrete technical issues, consider the survey response rate. We cannot make parents fill out surveys. So, what if they don’t? What if we end up with schools and districts where fewer than 10 percent of parents fill out a survey (which is very possible)? Are we going to hold a school with a 10-percent parent response rate accountable for negative survey results? If the results look good, are we going to give the school a high rating?

Even if we ignore the first two issues, do we really want to compel DESE to undertake this work? We hear a lot of grumbling around the capitol about how DESE has gotten too big. This is how that happens. Developing and administering surveys to Missouri’s more than 800,000 students and their parents, and 70,000 teachers, across thousands of schools and hundreds of districts would require more administrative expansion. That is far outside the low-cost, straightforward scope of the original report card plan.

Governor Kehoe issued a clear and simple executive order on school and district report cards in January, which properly emphasizes academic performance. The order is fundamentally sound. There’s always room for improvement, but the legislation that came out of the House has moved this effort in the wrong direction. We hope our lawmakers can get it back on track.

The post Legislation on A–F Report Cards for Schools and Districts Has Gone Sideways appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I attended the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, January 28. The hearing covered two bills under current consideration—one on A–F letter grades for schools, and the other on literacy reform.

The committee is a diverse group with diverse views, as were the individuals giving testimony. I was expecting a lively debate and opinions from all different angles, and that’s what happened.

However, one thing I wasn’t expecting was the view expressed by several members of the committee that Missouri schools are doing just fine, or even excelling. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Missouri schools are performing very poorly. The data on this point are publicly available and unambiguous.

The best evidence comes from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which is widely viewed as providing the most credible test data in the country. Here are charts showing the changes over time in Missouri’s national rank on NAEP, in 4th- and 8th-grade reading, since about the turn of the century:

(These graphs are courtesy of the Show-Me Institute’s Avery Frank.)

Our 4th-grade reading results are especially bleak—we rank 38th out of the 50 states as of 2024, whereas two decades earlier we ranked in the low twenties. Today, an alarming 42 percent of our 4th graders score Below Basic on NAEP.

Making matters worse, our ranking decline since about 2015 is in the context of generally declining test scores nationwide during this time. Our scores are declining faster than the rest of a declining nation.

The only reason not to be worried about this is if you don’t believe these tests tell us anything important. On this point, there is overwhelming evidence that NAEP—and standardized tests more broadly—are highly predictive of consequential long-term outcomes. There are hundreds—maybe thousands—of articles that show a link between standardized test performance and later life outcomes.

In fact, just last year a high-quality study on NAEP scores found the following: “More recent birth cohorts in states with large increases in NAEP math achievement enjoyed higher incomes, improved educational attainment, and declines in teen motherhood, incarceration, and arrest rates compared to those in states with smaller increases.” Whatever outcome you care about for our children, NAEP scores predict it. (If you’re interested in recent, related evidence from Missouri’s MAP test, see here.)

Our declining test scores should concern all of us. Whether the committee members recognize it or not, under their watch and the watches of their predecessors over the last decade plus, Missouri’s academic performance has been declining. An overwhelming body of research tells us the decline will have real consequences for our children, and ultimately this will have real consequences for the future of our state.

I recognize we won’t all agree on the solutions, but it became apparent during the hearing that we don’t even agree on the problem. I encourage skeptics of my message—especially members of the education committee, who have the power to make change—to look at the data themselves. Putting our heads in the sand will not make the consequences any less dire down the road.

(If you’d like to see specific examples to get a sense of the kinds of NAEP questions Missouri children can and cannot answer correctly, see an earlier post here.)

The post To the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee: We Have a Problem appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Using data from Michigan, the authors identify the effects of charter schools on special education students by comparing special education students who enroll in charter schools early with those who enroll in charter schools late. This research design addresses a common concern in charter school research: students who choose to enroll in charter schools may differ from those who remain in traditional public schools in unobservable ways. Simple comparisons between charter and traditional public school students can therefore be misleading.

To overcome this challenge, Imberman and Johnson compare early charter entrants to late entrants. Because both groups eventually attend charter schools, they are more comparable to one another than to students who never enroll. The effect of charter school attendance is identified by examining differences in outcomes before the late entrants make the switch.

In my view, the study’s two most important findings are:

• Charter schools use special education programs and service assignments that are less intensive and expen­sive than in traditional public schools.
• Charter schools improve special education students’ academic achievement and attendance.

The authors also conduct a parallel analysis of general education students. They show that the positive effects of charter schools on special education students are similar to the positive effects on general education students.

This study complements recent work by Elizabeth Setren, who examines special education students in Boston who randomly win or lose lotteries to attend charter schools. Because lottery outcomes are random, this design provides especially strong causal evidence that factors other than charter school attendance are highly unlikely to drive the results. Setren likewise finds that charter schools improve test scores for special education students.

Special education students are an important subpopulation. They account for nearly 15 percent of K-12 enrollment in the United States and receive disproportionate funding. Both of these studies find charter schools serve special education students more effectively, and contribute to the large and growing body of evidence showing that charter schools outperform traditional public schools.

The post Charter Schools Do Special Education Better appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This is a much-needed improvement to school accountability in Missouri. Parents and community members will finally have access to clear information about how their local schools are performing.

Following the governor’s address, I wanted to re-up my post about school report cards from last May, which helps to explain why the letter-grade requirement is sorely needed and how it improves upon our current school report card system.

It is printed in full below.

———

Information Overload and Missouri School Report Cards

Have you ever started reading the warning label on an over-the-counter drug like aspirin or ibuprofen? Ever finished one? Probably not.

Drug warning labels are classic examples of information overload—so packed with details that they become practically useless. Unfortunately, the school report cards produced by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) suffer from the same problem.

In theory, these report cards should help parents and community members quickly understand how their local schools are performing. When well-designed, they can promote transparency and inform decision-making. But if a school report card is not organized and does not emphasize the most important information, it functions like a drug warning label. It can include a lot of detail but be of little practical value.

If you’re curious to see this for yourself, here is a link to the school report cards made available by DESE. Choose a district, then a school, and you can scroll through a vast amount of information. However, after you’ve taken the time to look through it all, you may realize you haven’t learned very much. DESE’s report cards may be comprehensive, but they fail to deliver what busy families need most: clear, accessible information about school quality.

Now, contrast the Missouri report cards with this report card for Briarmeadow Charter School in Houston, produced by the Texas Education Agency. At the very top, letter grades in four categories are displayed prominently:

• Overall Rating: A

• Student Achievement: A

• School Progress: A
• Closing the Gap: A

With just a glance, you know where this school stands.

Texas is not alone in this approach. States such as Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana also use summary performance indicators on their school report cards to give the public a clear picture of school quality. Unlike Missouri, these states are courageous enough to rate schools based on performance, and most importantly, publicly identify schools that are failing to educate their students.

It’s no coincidence that students in states with strong transparency and accountability policies, including clear and informative school report cards, consistently outperform Missouri students academically. These policies are key drivers of school improvement, and without them Missouri is only likely to fall further behind. School report cards that are informative about actual school performance are a simple way to get our state moving in the right direction.

The post Meaningful School Report Cards are on the Way appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report is from an admissions workgroup consisting of university faculty and a handful of administrators. It focuses on a remedial math course UCSD introduced in 2016 to help freshmen fill gaps in high school–level math. The course initially enrolled about one percent of incoming students. However, instructors began to realize many students lacked even more fundamental middle- and elementary-level math skills. In response, the math department split the course into two courses: one focused on elementary and middle school math, and the other on high school math.

By 2024, more than 900 students—12.5 percent of the entering freshman class at UCSD—placed into these remedial courses.

To give a sense of the skill deficiencies among students in these remedial courses, the report shows specific math problems along with the fractions of students who could answer them correctly. Here are three example questions at the elementary level (edited very lightly for presentation here):

1. Fill in the blank: 7 + 2 = __ + 6

2. Round the number 374518 to the nearest hundred.

3. Find (13/16) ÷ 2

While it would be reasonable to expect every student who is accepted into an elite public university to be able to answer these questions correctly, many tested students could not. Just 75, 39, and 34 percent of test takers gave the correct answers to these questions, respectively.

The report identifies several factors that contribute to these disturbing—and frankly embarrassing—outcomes, including grade inflation in California’s K-12 schools that allows students to graduate with good grades but weak skills, the pandemic (every educator’s favorite scapegoat), and the UC system’s stubborn refusal to require standardized tests for admissions. But beneath all of this lies a deeper issue: a system-wide erosion of meritocracy. When merit is downplayed and standards are continually lowered, you end up with students arriving at elite universities unable to do elementary math.

To be clear, UCSD is not the only institution that has this problem, and I don’t want to punish it unduly for being transparent. In fact, the report talks about similar problems at other UC campuses, and what it describes aligns with my own experience as a professor at the University of Missouri.

There is evidence all around us of the shift away from meritocracy in education. Nationally and in Missouri, student grades, and high school and college graduation rates, are at historic or near-historic highs despite clear evidence of declining academic skills. Educational administrators at all levels of schooling have demonstrated a blatant disregard for excellence.

(Disclosure: I am a proud —though less so by the day—alumnus of UC San Diego, where I received my BA, MA, and Ph.D.)

The post We’re Destroying Meritocracy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The four-day school week (4DSW) has expanded rapidly nationwide and especially in Missouri, where roughly one-in-three districts now use it. The model is most common in rural areas, with a few exceptions.

Why is it so popular? We interviewed 36 Missouri educators—20 superintendents, 4 principals, and 12 teachers—to understand districts’ motivations. Nearly all said the 4DSW boosts teacher recruitment and retention, and they cited this as the primary reason for adopting it.

We paired these interviews with a quantitative analysis of teacher employment data from Missouri districts between 2009 and 2024. Using a difference-in-differences research design, we compare districts that adopted the 4DSW with similar districts that did not to estimate the policy’s effects on turnover and hiring.

The bottom line: We find no evidence that the 4DSW reduces teacher turnover, even six or more years after adoption, and no evidence that it improves recruitment. In short, it is not a solution to districts’ staffing challenges.

This disconnect between perception and reality is puzzling. Our study can’t pinpoint the cause, but we offer several explanations. One is that while teachers value the 4DSW, they may not value it enough to change their employment decisions; as one teacher told us, the 4DSW “made [the] job a little bit more enjoyable” but didn’t affect whether they stayed. Confirmation bias may also play a role, with educators noticing success stories while overlooking cases where the policy had no impact.

Whatever the reason, our findings show a significant gap between the common perception of the 4DSW and the reality on the ground. Moreover, our conclusions are not unique—recent studies in other states reach similar conclusions about the 4DSW’s limited labor-market effects (e.g., see here and here). This is especially concerning given that most prior research shows that the 4DSW harms student achievement (e.g., see here).

Missouri districts may or may not prefer the 4DSW, but we should be clear about what it does and doesn’t do. The research shows it doesn’t improve student learning, and it doesn’t help with staffing. Framing the 4DSW as a strategy to improve educational quality is a dubious proposition.

The post The 4-Day School Week Doesn’t Improve Teacher Recruitment or Retention appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you want great schools, you have to have great teachers. Lots of other things are important. Strong school culture, appropriate instructional materials, good curriculum, robust relationships with parents, all necessary. But it is the person, the actual human being, that puts all of that into play that is most important.

Mimicking the Tennessee Teacher Evaluation Model

Missouri could better support teachers by providing meaningful guidance and feedback. One promising model comes from Tennessee.

Launched in 2012, the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM) was designed to help educators improve. Teachers frequently express a desire to improve, but often lack resources or guidance on how to get better.

By using announced and unannounced in-class observations, academic growth data, and student performance data, TEAM calculates a teacher score (1–5 scale) that provides information to teachers and school leaders about teacher performance. The goal is not to punish teachers, but to coach them and help them improve. Observers identify one strength and one area for improvement in each lesson, keeping the process constructive, focused, and encouraging. The Tennessee Education Research Alliance at Vanderbilt University found that teachers in schools with stronger implementation of TEAM improved faster than those in schools with weaker implementation.

The evaluation promotes ongoing dialogue about what happens in the classroom and how it affects student performance, and provides a basis for professional advancement—e.g., high-performing teachers can be identified through TEAM for mentoring roles.

Initially, there was strong pushback against teacher evaluation in Tennessee, which is not surprising. At its launch, only 28 percent of teachers believed TEAM would improve student outcomes, and only 38 percent believed it would improve teacher performance. But those numbers changed quickly once teachers actually experienced TEAM, rising to 71 and 76 percent, respectively, by 2019.

Missouri should consider emulating Tennessee’s commitment to rigorous and constructive teacher evaluation. If we’re serious about improving school quality and student outcomes, we need to be serious about improving teacher quality.

The post Improving Teacher Quality to Improve Reading Quality appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Perhaps you, as a parent, would be anxious about sending your young child to this building every day. Technically, you have the legal right to at least move them to a safer school. Under the Unsafe School Choice Option in the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, students in persistently dangerous schools can transfer out just for that reason. Unfortunately, DESE has not designated Oakland Middle School—or any other school in the state—as persistently dangerous. If fact, no schools in Missouri have met that definition in the 23 years that the law has been in place.

Many states acknowledge that students shouldn’t be forced to attend a school that the state categorizes as extremely low performing. Students are given an automatic out. Missouri used to have a transfer program for students in low-performing districts—meaning districts that were unaccredited—but we magically no longer have any unaccredited districts.

DESE knows where the dangerous and low-performing schools are. The students, and their parents, undoubtedly know if they’re attending one of these schools. And I would imagine that the teachers are fully aware as well. So why do we insist on locking kids into them? Just three miles from Oakland is Jefferson Middle School, which has double the test scores and no reported weapons violations.

If you’re thinking that all anxious parents should just move—please don’t. Every child, regardless of their address, deserves to attend a safe school that can effectively teach children. And if more state support and more money were the answer, these schools wouldn’t exist. We’ve been doing both for decades.

DESE should enforce the Unsafe School Choice Option law with integrity. The state board of education should, with DESE, create an open and transparent system that identifies low-performing schools and they should not force children to attend them. The state legislature should allow students in Missouri to choose a public school that fits their needs. It would be so easy to make education better for so many children in Missouri—we just need policymakers to do their part.

The post Missouri Children Deserve Better appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are two aspects of the event that I really like. First, it recognized high-performing schools. Too often in education we choose not to differentiate school performance—we don’t punish poor performers, and we don’t reward excellence. I like that the event promoted the positive impacts of schools that generate high achievement growth. I was also pleased to see coverage of the recognition some schools received in the local media and in school newsletters and announcements (e.g., see here and here).

Second, I like that the event was centered on test-score growth, which is a far better measure of the impacts of schools than test-score levels or proficiency rates. Growth captures how much students learn during the year, not just where they start. This means schools in low-income communities are not penalized for low starting points as long as their students make good progress. This important design feature of growth is illustrated in this report from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Not surprisingly, the high-growth schools recognized at the event included many in high-poverty areas.

We need more events like this. When schools perform well, we need to recognize them, thank them, and remind them they are on the right path. This validation matters, especially for schools that show high growth despite low overall achievement levels due to external factors. Without acknowledgment, educators in these schools might not realize the positive impacts they’re making.

I hope the PRiME event becomes a mainstay and is the beginning of a more concerted effort in Missouri to reward academic excellence. If we want our schools to thrive, we need to show them that their success matters.

(Disclosure: As a researcher, one of my main areas of work is on growth modeling and value-added modeling in education. I am part of the team of researchers who estimate the growth model for DESE.)

The post PRiME Summit Celebrates Schools with Impressive Test Score Growth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So how did charter schools perform during and after the pandemic? New research from Adam Kho, Shelby Smith, and Ron Zimmer, using student data from both charter and traditional public schools in Tennessee, suggests that they performed quite well.

Their analysis shows that during the 2020–21 school year, at the height of the pandemic, students in both charter and traditional public schools performed similarly—i.e., poorly. All schools were a mess during the pandemic. But in the two years that followed—the 2021–22 and 2022–23 school years—student learning in charter schools rebounded much more quickly than in traditional public schools.

To put these results in context, the authors note that charter schools were already outperforming traditional public schools in Tennessee prior to the pandemic. Given this, they interpret their post-pandemic results as follows: “in the first post-pandemic year . . . the [existing] charter school advantage . . . quickly resurfaced. In the second post-COVID year, the charter effect was even greater . . . suggesting that charter schools have been able to recover from pandemic-induced learning loss at a quicker and more substantial rate.” [emphasis added]

This evidence supports the idea that the less restrictive environment in which charter schools operate enables them to respond more effectively to challenging circumstances. The COVID pandemic was an extreme situation, but the same logic likely applies to the smaller, everyday challenges schools face.

The post Charters Have Outperformed Traditional Public Schools Post-Pandemic appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Our study shows that retained students improved tremendously in terms of their on-grade academic performance. They did not suddenly become top performers in their new third-grade classrooms, but they moved meaningfully toward the middle of the performance distribution. The positive effect of third-grade retention on test scores persisted through at least seventh grade, which was as far as we could track with our data. We also found no evidence of harmful side effects. In particular, retained students were no more likely to be subject to school discipline and had no changes in attendance after their retention.

How do we know the retention itself is responsible for the improvement in test scores, and not something else? We used what researchers call a “regression discontinuity design” to estimate the retention effect. This approach compares students whose test scores fall just above the cutoff for promotion with those just below. When we compare students very close to the cutoff, the only difference between the ones on different sides is whether they were held back—in all other respects, they are the same, at least on average. This design mimics random assignment, and gives us strong confidence that the improvements we observe were caused by retention.

Our findings in Indiana corroborate similar findings in several other cities and states showing that early-grade retention greatly improves academic outcomes without negative behavioral consequences. Retention in later grades is more problematic. This has led researchers to theorize that the negative stigma and weakened sense of belonging associated with retention are problems that affect older students, but not younger ones.

It is increasingly well understood that grade retention for struggling readers is an important part of a robust early literacy policy (e.g., see here). If students can’t read by the end of the third grade, it is in their best interest to be held back while they catch up. Missouri currently has a weak and ineffectual retention policy that as far as I can tell, is not in active or meaningful use. We should update our state retention policy to make it objective and rigorous, and stop socially promoting children who can’t read.

The post Students Who Can’t Read Benefit from Third-Grade Retention appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The slow road to recovery is illustrated in the recently released preliminary results of the 2025 Missouri Assessment Program (MAP). The most recent data indicate modest improvements in mathematics, and average scores in at least some grades that are finally eclipsing pre-pandemic levels. However, the state’s stagnant reading scores continue to be a source of concern, as reading scores remain below their pre-pandemic levels in all tested grades.

Figure 1 summarizes MAP trends in the Show-Me State, including preliminary scores from the 2024–2025 school year:

Figure 1: Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) English/Language Arts Mean Scale Scores by Grade Level, 2018–2025

Source: Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

In Figure 1, the mean scale scores represent the student body’s performance as a whole. There are several important takeaways from this figure:

• Across all grades, Missouri’s reading scores have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
• Except for scores in the 3rd and 5th grades, reading scores are lower now than they were in 2020–21, when the pandemic was still strongly affecting in-person schooling.

Clearly, there is still work to be done.

Potential Solutions

This post is not meant to be doom and gloom—there is hope. States such as Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee have shown that student literacy can improve substantially with the right reforms.

These states have adopted early literacy policies that are effective, though sometimes unpopular: mandatory third-grade retention, eliminating three-cueing for teaching reading, and ensuring teacher preparation programs teach evidence-based reading practices.

Other states have proved that early literacy reforms can work. The 2026 legislative session is an opportunity to take meaningful steps toward improving educational outcomes in Missouri by taking reading reform more seriously.

The post Missouri’s Stagnant Reading Scores appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This study stands out for its rigorous research design, which credibly estimates the causal effects of attending these schools. Each of the five schools is oversubscribed, meaning more students want to attend than the number of available seats. Admission is determined by random lottery: students whose numbers are randomly drawn are offered admission, while those not selected are not. By comparing outcomes for lottery winners and losers, the researchers can isolate the causal impacts of attending the charter schools on student outcomes.

The schools serve a predominantly low-income Black and Latino population and adhere to the “no excuses” charter model. This model features extended instructional time, mandatory uniforms, strict discipline and structure, and high expectations around academic performance and college attendance. Although “no excuses” schools have recently fallen out of favor, research—including this study—continues to show their effectiveness. The authors describe their findings as showing “large positive effects of enrolling in a high-quality, ‘no excuses’ charter school on academic achievement, enrollment in any college, enrollment in any four-year college, and persistence to the second year of a four-year college” (p. 568).

(The reasons why the “no excuses” model has fallen out of favor are perplexing to me, but this is a topic for a different time. It is especially frustrating because one reason this study is possible—along with numerous other similar studies—is that no excuses schools are regularly oversubscribed, which is a direct indicator that families value them.)

This study contributes to what is now a large body of research showing the transformative potential of school choice. In the face of mounting evidence on the poor performance of Missouri schools, we should embrace policies that can lead to meaningful improvements in student outcomes, including policies that create more school-choice opportunities for our children.

The post School Choice Case Study: Charter Schools in Los Angeles appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The 2024 NAEP results paint a bleak picture for our country. Scores in both reading and math are on the decline, continuing a decade-long trend. The pandemic made things worse, but scores were already declining prior to the pandemic.

The outlook is even worse in Missouri. Across NAEP’s four core categories—4th-grade reading and math, and 8th-grade reading and math—Missouri ranks, on average, 40th out of the 50 states  after adjusting for demographics and poverty. Our highest ranking is 35th in 8th-grade reading—still in the bottom third nationally. There is no way to sugarcoat it: the academic performance of Missouri’s students is abysmal.

This is bad news if you believe (like I do) that an educated workforce is critical for economic growth. Yet the urgency of this problem appears lost on many Missourians and by extension, our elected leaders.

One reason for the disconnect may be that NAEP scores feel abstract. What does a score of 234 in math or 210 in reading actually mean? Without context, the data can seem vague. In this short piece, I hope to provide a more concrete sense of what NAEP scores are telling us about Missouri students’ literacy and numeracy skills.

First, consider this sample question from the NAEP 4th-grade math assessment:

The question asks 4th graders to identify odd numbers. The correct answer is B: Alex, Megan, and David. What percentage of 4^th-grade students in Missouri should be able to answer this question correctly? Ideally, nearly all of them. Maybe at least 90 percent? But in reality, just 6 in 10, or 61 percent, get it right. This means 4 in 10 Missouri 4th graders cannot identify odd numbers.

Here’s another question, also from the 4th-grade NAEP test. This one asks students to complete a number pattern counting by fours:

Only 73 percent of Missouri 4th graders can correctly finish the pattern. That means over 1 in 4 cannot.

Turning to reading, NAEP results reveal that many of our students struggle to extract basic meaning from a text. Consider the following questions from the 4th-grade reading test:

The correct answer, B: Despereaux thinks the light is very beautiful, is selected by Missouri students just 62 percent of the time.

This follow-up question asks students to use the full passage to identify why Furlough’s behavior is important:

The correct answer is D: Scurrying helps mice avoid danger. Only 70 percent of Missouri students answer correctly.

These are just a handful of examples of questions that Missouri 4th graders struggle with. All are considered “easy” by NAEP. Missouri students fare much worse on more difficult items. Interested readers can look up additional examples using NAEP’s sample question tool.

I hope this post provides some clarity around what NAEP scores tell us about the state of education in Missouri. Our students are struggling mightily. We are not a small tweak away from righting the ship. If we want Missouri children to excel, we need big changes.

The post What’s in a NAEP Score? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I don’t object to a little downtime as the school year winds down—most parents probably feel the same. But I do mind that the slowdown seems to begin earlier and earlier in the year, stretching into a multi-week period in May when little meaningful academic work takes place. What’s more, students don’t always enjoy it either. Speaking from my own experience, my kids are not exactly clamoring for more assignments, but their disengagement is obvious.

This end-of-year drift is especially frustrating after months of being told how critical school attendance is. If every day in school matters, why is so much time wasted at the end of the year?

In the grand scheme of things, the May Malaise may seem like a minor annoyance. But it also informs a deeper question: What would schools look like without testing? While I don’t believe they would devolve into nonstop parties and movies, this period offers a glimpse into what the school system would look like with less focus on academics and less accountability. It suggests the motivation to improve student achievement isn’t as deeply embedded in the system as we might hope. And to me, it highlights the value of testing.

I know some people see standardized tests as the enemy of good teaching. They argue that tests constrain teachers, forcing them to “teach to the test” instead of inspiring creativity and deeper learning. But I see it differently. I believe testing is one of the most powerful tools we have to keep schools focused on what matters most: teaching core academic skills. I fear that if we stop testing, what little urgency we have for improving academic achievement will be lost.

Even if you think that tests are too distracting for teachers, or too stressful for students (some stress is good for them, I assure you!), just remember May Malaise. It could be worse.

The post “May Malaise” and the Value of Testing in Schools appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A recent study by Ronak Jain and Samuel Stemper offers compelling new evidence on this issue. Drawing on data from over 2.5 million student test scores across 82 countries, the researchers examine how the rollout of 3G internet affected educational outcomes. Because 3G technology was introduced unevenly across regions, it created a natural experiment; it was available to some students before others based on where they lived. This variation allows Jain and Stemper to isolate the causal impact of 3G technology on student performance.

Importantly, the rollout of 3G was not just about internet access—it was also about mobile internet access. It facilitated the rise of smartphones and data-intensive social media and gaming applications. Correspondingly, Jain and Stemper show that the spread of 3G internet increased student access to smartphones, in addition to overall internet use.

The research shows exposure to 3G networks caused significantly lower test scores in math, reading, and science. Students also reported greater difficulty making friends and a weaker sense of belonging. For many parents and educators, these results likely confirm what they already know, or at least strongly suspect: smartphones and the constant connectivity they allow are taking a toll on both the academic performance and well-being of our children.

Fortunately, there are steps we can take to address this problem. One straightforward policy with growing support is to ban smartphones in schools. Several states have already passed statewide bans, but even in the absence of a statewide ban in Missouri, local officials in school districts can enact bans on their own. Available research suggests the stricter the phone policy, the better.

The post Phones Down: The Negative Effects of the Internet on Student Learning appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Governor Kehoe has appointed four new members to the Missouri State Board of Education, including two who will, if confirmed, replace the president and vice-president. Given that the current president, Charlie Shields, has held the position for a decade and his term expired five years ago, I would say it’s about time. Hopefully these new members will bring new energy and fortitude as they tackle a challenging to-do list.

First, there is the glaring issue of (a lack of) accountability. Currently, Missouri school districts are held accountable through the Missouri School Improvement Plan (MSIP) 6. According to the standards set by this plan, like those in versions 1 through 5 before it, all but six of Missouri’s 520 school districts receive the state’s seal of approval, also known as full accreditation. It defies logic that a district like St. Louis Public Schools, with its numerous academic and financial problems, could be fully accredited. Part of the reason is that when the board switched from using MSIP 5 to MSIP 6 in 2024, it determined that the MSIP 6 results for a single school year were not reliable enough to justify changing any district’s accreditation status. Rather, the board decided to use a three-year rolling average to make that determination, meaning that accreditation decisions will need to wait until 2027. The new Board needs to recognize this for the nonsense that it is, and it needs to create a meaningful accountability system.

Second, the new Board should get fully behind the governor’s effort to revise the Foundation Formula, which distributes most state education dollars to districts. The existing formula is over 20 years old, and at least one-third of our districts don’t even use it. Instead, those districts are “held harmless” and given the amount they received in 2005, regardless of any changes in enrollment or property values. The board, as stewards of billions of dollars in public funding, should insist on a new formula that is highly targeted to student need, is transparent, and allows funding to follow a student to the school of their choice. Ironically, the same MSIP 6 that can’t be trusted to measure student achievement has been deemed perfectly reliable when the board requests that the legislature raise the formula’s base funding amount per student. Which is it?

Third, the Board’s job is to hold schools and districts accountable for their performance, not to hide or apologize for failure. Currently, students who have mastered grade-level content and are ready for the next grade are classified as “Proficient.” In other words, they’re where they should be. But a bill currently under consideration in the Missouri Legislature would add a classification called “Grade Level.” If you didn’t know better, you might think that meant something very similar to “proficient,” but it would actually describe students who may be on grade level. What purpose could this new classification have, other than to provide false reassurance to parents whose children are falling behind? The Board should resist any attempts to water down results.

Finally, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has a website that is notoriously difficult to use. One of DESE’s main jobs is to disseminate information and data on our 2,500 schools and the 850,000 students who attend them. If Missouri were to allow students to choose a public school other than their assigned one, DESE would need a functioning website to track those students. If the Foundation Formula is revised, taxpayers deserve to be able to easily track public funds as they follow students. The Board should prioritize the building of a user-friendly and comprehensive website with easy-to-find, accessible, and transparent data.

Last year, four in ten Missouri 4th-graders tested in English/Language Arts couldn’t read. This fall they will move to middle school, and one can only imagine the difficulty they’ll be having when they can’t read their textbooks. DESE used to publish the percentage of high school graduates who were deemed either college- or career-ready by DESE standards. The percentage for the last year I could find (2017) was 42 percent. My own calculations from last year put the number at around 62 percent. When fewer than half of our young students can read on grade level and only about half of our graduating seniors are prepared for what’s next, we are in an educational crisis.

Being appointed to the State Board of Education is an honor, but it comes with responsibilities. We want board members to know the truth about how Missouri schools and students are faring, and we want them to tell us the truth about it. We want them to have a plan to fix what’s broken. That may include a performance audit of DESE to make sure the agency is functioning at the highest possible level. It may include working to expand rather than restrict parents’ choices for the education of their children. It also should include requesting the appropriate amount of state funds for their budget, rather than reflexively asking for more money each year. Time will tell which direction this new board takes, but one thing is crystal clear: It can’t be business as usual.

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