In this brief, I describe the take-up of early childhood education funding from Missouri House Bill 1689. While public pre-K enrollment expanded in Missouri prior to the pandemic, many school districts have not leveraged this newly available state funding to support pre-K growth

The Policy Research in Missouri Education (PRiME) Center analyzed school district reopening plans in fall 2020 to understand how Missouri districts responded to English Language Learners.

This policy brief chronicles the birth, adoption, and expiration of MoPTA and the educational policy dynamics that prevented the stable adoption of the assessment. We summarize our complete analysis which finds that MoPTA serves as an illustrative study for how teacher education policy delivery is formed and implemented within a network of interdependent actors.

In this brief, we use data from a statewide sample of Missouri traditional and charter school districts’ 2020-21 reopening plans. We describe the characteristics of districts that planned to provide students with devices and internet access for distanced learning.

In this brief, we analyze how total public school enrollment and average building enrollment in St. Louis compare across Missouri and nationally. We find that St. Louis has smaller per building enrollments than virtually any other city in Missouri or nationally.

In this brief, we share an overview of the landscape of school choice in Missouri, with a focus on charter schools. We hope this information will inform legislative debate and ground those discussions in data. We discuss charter school spread, funding, and Missouri voters’ opinions about school choice.

Using school-level data from Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from 2005 through 2019, we explored between-school disparities in out-of-school suspensions based on school characteristics - racial composition, locality, and socioeconomic status - to track trends and see if schools have made improvements.

In this policy brief, we consider the gap in technology access for Missouri’s school districts brought to light by the recent coronavirus pandemic. We further describe how trends in Missouri’s internet access lag those of our neighboring states and the nation, specifically regions with similar rural populations, and why rectifying these gaps is vital to meet students’ educational needs.

In this policy brief, we describe the national landscape of recent higher education policy changes and how such decisions may impact the future of higher education admissions.

In this brief, we discuss the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic recession, as well as how federal fiscal aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped mitigate similar budget cuts following the Great Recession. We note that districts with varying local wealth experienced heterogeneous school funding recoveries and discuss other policy implications in education.

In this policy brief, we summarize the issue of growing food insecurity among Missouri children, detailing the role of some of the federal programs that support them. As more families become food insecure in the wake of the pandemic, we also note evidence of the impact of hunger on critical student outcomes.

In this policy brief, we describe the results of the recent SLU/YouGov Poll and respondents’ opinions on charter schools, open enrollment policies, and private school choice.

In this policy brief, we describe the results of the recent SLU/YouGov Poll and respondents’ opinions on school finance and teacher salaries in light of the COVID-induced recession.

In this policy brief, we describe the results of the recent SLU/YouGov Poll and respondents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they rate their local schools and schools across the state.

In this policy brief, we describe the results of the recent SLU/YouGov Poll and respondents’ thoughts on how leaders have handled the pandemic. We also describe responses to questions on whether Missourians think school should return to in-person instruction.

In this policy brief, we describe the National Center for Education Statistics’ Condition of Education Report. The 2020 edition focuses on Internet access, postsecondary degree completion, as well as examines trends and patterns across all levels of education in the United States. We focus on changes over time and add some additional data from outside sources to create relevance for Missouri’s education landscape.

In this policy brief, we describe Missouri’s School Improvement Program (MSIP) and how it impacts public schools in the state. We also describe the State Board of Education’s role in MSIP and how Misosuri’s state accountability system compares to the federal accountability program.

In this policy brief, we take a look at the results of the 2019 edition of the NAEP. Unlike previous years, Missouri saw its scores drop, specifically in 4th grade reading. We examine how different groups of students in Missouri performed, as well as how Missouri compared to neighboring states and the nation as whole.

In this policy brief, we take a dive into the ACT results for Missouri’s class of 2019 and how the decreased participation rate impacted scores in Missouri.

In this policy brief, we examine the role of school governance and its potential impacts on schools. We provide a specific look at how traditional public and public charter school governance models vary here in Missouri.