As Missouri students start a new school year, many will find familiar faces missing from the front of the classroom. This is because teacher turnover in the state remains stubbornly high – more than twice the national average. 

Teacher turnover in Missouri is at 14.6 percent, according to research from the PRiME Center. Meanwhile, the national average is roughly 7 percent.  

Here we report on the percent of students who are scoring at the proficient or advanced levels in ELA and math, for schools serving elementary and middle-grade students.

In this third blog in a four-part series, we examine demographic trends from fall 2019 through fall 2024 across five types of public schools in St. Louis City.

Several studies have connected teacher turnover to declines in student outcomes. First-year teachers are 70% more likely than the average teacher to leave Missouri public education. Fewer and fewer teachers persist through their early-career years, with only six in ten reaching their sixth year in Missouri public education. Policymakers and education leaders should strategize ways to improve early-career teacher working conditions, training, and professional opportunities.

A summary and overview of news coverage of Joseph. R. Nichols, Jr., Ph.D. and Alyssa Ignaczak, M.Ed.’s report on Displacement of Black Teachers in Missouri Post-Brown, 1954-1970.

The average starting teacher salary in Missouri in FY 2022–23 was $36,829, which ranked 50th in the nation. In June 2020 and August 2023, we asked voters if they believe public school teacher salaries should increase, decrease, or stay the same. In 2020, almost three quarters of respondents (74%) claimed salaries should increase, and this response increased to 81% by August 2023

Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRL) can be a bit of a buzzword in the education space. In today’s blog post, we dispel common misconceptions about the program, and answer some FAQs.

When researchers and policymakers examine student enrollment and demographic trends in Missouri, one common measure used to capture the socioeconomic status of a school’s student body is the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRL). While this metric has been widely used, it often fails to accurately reflect family income and, as a result, can overestimate the true need within schools. This issue warrants further exploration, especially as it impacts key decisions about resource allocation and support for disadvantaged students.

First-year Missouri educators earned just over $34,000 on average for the 2021-22 school year, ranking second-lowest in the nation for average starting teacher pay. Missouri’s 2021-22 average teacher salary was also among the lowest in the country, and less than average teacher pay in all eight border states.

This blog emphasizes key takeaways from the 2022 NAEP LTT findings on remote learners’ technology access. We discuss these takeaways within the context of previous PRiME findings related to Missouri students’ technology access, given the prevalence of technology-based learning in schools over the last three academic years.

This blog describes Missouri’s changes to teacher certifications to fill teacher vacancies and how our solutions compare to changes in nearby states.