Positive Momentum in Missouri Public Education

Jefferson City, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) shares highlights from 2025, reflecting on a year of progress, innovation, and collaboration, and outlines what the department is focusing on in 2026.

DESE’s Highlights of 2025

Missouri Public Schools have shown Meaningful Gains in APR Scores

• DESE released the statewide Annual Performance Reports (APRs) for the 2024-25 school year. APRs demonstrate the progress educators, students, parents, and the community are making toward meeting the standards and indicators in the sixth iteration of Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP 6). Key highlights for the 2024-25 school year APR data include:
  • More than 91 percent of Missouri public schools meet or exceed statewide standards.
  • More than 310 public schools improved their APR scores in 2025 when compared to 2024.
  • Missouri’s attendance rate, graduation rate, and Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores continue to improve.
  • More than 92% (785,000) of students attend fully accredited public schools.

Missouri Approved to Pilot Innovative Statewide Assessment Program

• The U.S. Department of Education approved DESE to pilot an innovative statewide assessment program focused on improving existing assessments. This approach moves beyond traditional end-of-year testing, offering modular assessments administered throughout the school year to provide timely feedback aligned to Missouri Learning Standards in English language arts and mathematics.

DESE’s Foundation Formula and Transportation Fully Funded for the 2026 Fiscal Year

• Governor Kehoe signed Fiscal Year 2026 budget with historic investments in education. This includes, fully funding the foundation formula, with an additional $500 million, fully funding transportation, which includes a $15 million increase, funding the small schools grant at $30 million, and investing $33.4 million in teacher baseline salaries.
• Besides the historic funding, members of the Missouri School Funding Modernization Task Force, appointed by Governor Kehoe, continue to make progress on creating a modernized funding structure for K-12 education. Under the executive order, the Task Force, led by DESE, will make recommendations to the Governor by the end of 2026. The goal is to ensure that every Missouri public school student is supported with adequate resources to achieve success.

DESE Launches New Statewide Educator Job Board

• Missouri is the first state in the nation to launch a Statewide Educator Job Board. This platform is a one-stop-shop for current and rising educators to find education-related jobs in Missouri. It automatically aggregates all teacher postings across the state and gives educators and potential educators the ability to find jobs that meet their criteria.
• Since the release of the job board there have been more than 22,500 users, nearly a 1,000 job seekers per week.
• The system includes a feature that allows principals and schools to put specific job information in a field that matches candidates. This has already resulted in more than 150 unique hires, many in schools that previously had staffing challenges.

DESE Sets Foundation for Data Improvement

• DESE established the foundation to improve how educators and all Missourians access the department’s data. The completion of this initial step including creating a data lake to house department data. Building upon this foundation, DESE will be able to provide quality data to our educators, families, and business and industry leaders more efficiently in the forms of dashboards and chat boxes.

DESE Asks for Feedback to Refresh the Statewide Education Strategic Plan

• The Missouri State Board of Education (SBE) and DESE sought input from education stakeholders on the refresh process of the Strategic Plan. More than 100 Missourians are in engaged in the development of the next strategic plan.
  • This work includes a new initiative creating the Transforming Schools workgroup. This workgroup is composed of visionary leaders, educators, and community partners. The purpose of the workgroup is to formulate specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations that the Department can implement to quickly assess and improve performance indicators in the lowest performing public schools.

Missouri Releases First-Ever Teacher Recruitment & Retention Playbook

• The nationally recognized Teacher Recruitment and Retention Playbook, developed by DESE and the Community Training and Assistance Center, features evidence-based, highly effective eight cornerstones of a state system of recruitment and retention. Missouri teacher retention continues to improve for all types of teachers.
• Last year, nearly 1,000 more teachers returned to the classroom compared to previous years. Enrollment in teacher education programs continues to rise as well. There was an increase of more than 3,200 enrolled students over the past three years.

DESE Recommends Removing 177 Child Care Licensing Rules

• Executive Order 25-15 called on DESE’s Office of Childhood (OCC) to remove 10% of the state’s child care licensing regulations to reduce duplication, improve clarity, and strengthen support for families and providers. After gathering input from hundreds of child care providers and families, OCC recommended reducing nearly 12% of Missouri’s child care licensing rules.
• OCC’s Implantation Report can be found on DESE’s website.

DESE Delivers Executive Report on Career and Technical Education to Governor’s Office

• DESE and the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development provided the Governor’s Office with recommendations to improve career and technical education delivery systems in Missouri. The Executive Order report can be found on DESE’s website. The recommendations included:
  • Strengthening Work-Based Learning, Employer Engagement, and Workforce Development
  • Expand Early Career Exploration, School Counseling, and Advising Systems
  • Strategic Communication and Marketing to Promote CTE

Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Nationally Ranked Due to Performance Measures

• Missouri VR is ranked in the top 20% nationally across all five Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act performance measures. These measures represent job placement rate, skill and credential gains, and wages earned by VR program participants.
• Missouri finished the program year 2024 (July 2024-June 2025) ranked 7th in measurable skill gain rate, 6th in employment rate second quarter after exit, 11th in median earnings, 6th in employment rate fourth quarter after exit, and 2nd in credential rate nationally.

DESE’s Office of Childhood (OCC) Reconstructs Payment Calculator and Child Care Subsidy Backlog

• In January 2025 there was more than 1,700 childcare providers in backlog, representing a total of 34,690 Payment Resolution Requests. Once the calculator was reconstructed, childcare providers were able to be paid in real time.

Implementing New Plan for the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled (MSSD)

• The State Board unanimously approved the initial step in the plan known as MSSD Reimagined. This reorganization of state-operated schools is in response to an extensive two-year review. MSSD Reimagined is designed to strengthen educational opportunities for MSSD students and improve effective special educational practices throughout Missouri. The initial step of the plan includes permanently closing 12 buildings by the conclusions of the 2025-2026 school year.

For more information on DESE’s 2025 highlights visit DESE’s newsroom on the website.

“DESE has made significant progress this year in supporting school districts, educators, and students,” said Commissioner of Education Dr. Karla Eslinger. “This work would not be possible without our business and industry leaders, and our strong families and communities. There is more work to be done but I am very proud that we are making meaningful progress. Thank you to our staff, our educators, business leaders and especially our students. Together we climb higher.”

Top Priorities for 2026

• Assess all students for literacy using state-approved literacy assessments
• Increase number of students demonstrating high-academic performance
• Provide resources to improve attendance rates
• Improve support to Missouri’s lowest performing schools
• Enhance data quality and analytics
• Expand access to quality child care
• Maximize access to quality early learning programs and services
• Continue to invest in highly qualified educators (competitive salaries)
• Continue to provide support and guidance on AI technology to all public schools
• Improve customer service and complete website upgrade
• Deployment of data visualization tool

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