The 2022 Beating the Odds Report: Student Growth in Missouri’s Highest Poverty Schools highlights the top schools that are “beating the odds” across the state by moving the needle on student learning while serving high concentrations of low-income students. We rank the top schools “beating the odds” in student growth in three categories—elementary schools, eleMiddle schools and middle schools—for both English Language Arts (ELA) and math. This report is the second in the 2022 series of Growth Reports that examine growth scores on the MAP within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2022 Missouri Statewide Student Growth Report highlights the top 20 schools for statewide student growth in three categories—elementary schools, eleMiddle schools and middle schools—for both English Language Arts (ELA) and math, schoolwide and for the Subgroup, based on PRiME Growth Scores. The 2022 PRiME Growth Score is a translation of DESE’s 2020–21 Missouri Growth Model score, which reflects average annual student growth for three school years. This report is the first in the 2022 series of Growth Reports that examine growth scores on the MAP within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this report, we use the PRiME Growth Score, a translation of state-calculated growth scores from the Missouri Growth Model, to highlight the schools achieving the top student growth while serving high concentrations of low-income students. This report focuses on the highest-growth schools serving the highest proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, those where the student body eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch (FRL) is in the fourth quartile. We rank top-growth schools in both English language arts and math and divide the rankings according to three school types.