Beating the Odds: Student Growth in Missouri's High Poverty Schools

By: Misti Jeffers, Ph.D., Molly I. Beck, Ph.D., Andrew Diemer, Ashley Donaldson Burle, & Evan Rhinesmith, Ph.D.

In our third report in the Missouri student growth series, the Beating the Odds Report uses the PRiME Growth Score, a translation of state-calculated growth scores from the Missouri Growth Model, to highlight the schools achieving top student growth while serving high concentrations of low-income students. We define these “high poverty” schools as schools where the student body eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch (FRL) is in the fourth quartile, meaning at levels higher than the remaining 75% of schools statewide. The goal of this report is to make it easier to understand which schools serving high concentrations of low-income students are moving Missouri’s students forward and to applaud the excellent growth that is occurring in these schools despite the additional barriers they face.

This publication ranks the top high poverty schools in both English language arts and math in terms of 2019 student growth scores. Our results are divided into three sections according to school type: elementary, eleMiddle, and middle. The sections are intended to group schools based on similarity in grade levels tested to avoid comparing dissimilar schools.