The Missouri State Board of Education has approved a new framework that will assign every public school, charter school and district an A-through-F rating, creating a statewide accountability label that officials say will be easier for families to interpret.
The board took up the framework at its September 15 meeting and approved it with one dissenting vote, according to reporting by ABC 17. The action settles the core formula, but it does not mean families will immediately see final grades. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education still plans to test the calculations, share draft results with schools and gather feedback before public release.
The grades will use a 100-point scale. An A begins at 89%, a B at 76%, a C at 63% and a D at 50%; anything below 50% receives an F. Under Executive Order 26-01, signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe in January, a school or district that tests fewer than 95% of eligible students on required state assessments will be lowered by one letter. Private schools may participate if they opt into Missouri's assessments.
What the grades will measure
Elementary and middle-school ratings will be based on academic achievement, value-added growth and whether students are on track to reach proficiency within three years. High-school ratings will add Missouri's Success-Ready Graduate measure and the four-year graduation rate. The governor's order directs DESE to aggregate the same measures into district-level grades.
The new letter grade will sit alongside, rather than replace, other information families use to judge a school. DESE officials said the rating will not determine accreditation or funding and acknowledged that one number cannot capture differences in poverty, student mobility, resources or school populations. At a September 10 public feedback session, the department said explanatory documents and links to district websites would accompany the grade cards.
The timetable remains unsettled. Before the vote, DESE said districts could receive a tentative look at results based on 2024-25 data by the end of September. After approval, officials said they first need to work with vendors and verify that the formula operates as intended, then review the results with the state board and schools before publishing them.
Support and opposition
The Kehoe administration argues that a single grade will make a complicated accountability system more accessible and help direct support to struggling schools. The executive order also urges the board to raise each grade threshold by five percentage points in the following year whenever at least 65% of schools earn an A or B.
Education groups, including the Missouri State Teachers Association and the Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals, have opposed reducing school performance to one letter. Their concern is that the label could obscure the circumstances behind the score and become a moving target if thresholds rise. For parents, the immediate practical change is not a new sanction but a new headline measure: a schoolwide letter that should be read with the underlying achievement, growth and graduation data.
