Show-Me Missouri Schools — A tool for investigation and advocacy for Missouri public schools. An illustrated Missouri landscape: a rural stone schoolhouse, water tower, farm and school bus on one side; a modern brick school and the St. Louis skyline with the Gateway Arch on the other.
AN INDEPENDENT PROJECT BY DR. JON TURNER

Show-Me Missouri Schools

Thirty-five years of change in every Missouri school district — enrollment, teacher pay, funding, achievement, and the four-day week — mapped so color tells the story at a glance.

STEP 1 · START WITH YOUR OWN DISTRICT
All 516 districts — funding, pay, achievement and child poverty on one page, each against the typical district.
516 districts mapped
826,075 students (2024-25)
1991–2025 thirty-five years of data
ENROLLMENT CHANGE, 2010–2025 · EVERY DISTRICT IS CLICKABLE
Shrinking Growing Click any district for its full profile · DESE data

Using a keyboard or screen reader? The map above isn’t operable by keyboard — use the district search box above to reach every district instead.

THREE NUMBERS, STATEWIDE
$29,500/yr
less each year in retirement for a teacher who spends a full career in the median rural Missouri district than one who spends it in the median suburb (≈ $737,000 over a 25-year retirement)
PSRS formula · MNEA schedules
$716 vs $39
raised per student by the identical 10¢ school tax in two different Missouri districts — an 18-fold gap that comes from local property wealth, not effort
MO State Auditor · tax year 2025
$3.60 vs $3.40
rural Missouri is not taxing itself less — the median rural district’s operating levy runs higher than the median suburb’s, on about 25% less property wealth per student
MO State Auditor · DESE, 2025
EXPLORE AN ISSUE

Seven ways into the data

Each page pairs its maps with plain-English findings, sources, and (where it applies) an interactive tool — the dime-test calculator, a pension comparison, or both. If you came from your district’s page, these show where its numbers sit statewide.

ENROLLMENT & DEMOGRAPHICS
Who the schools serve
District-by-district enrollment change since 1991, student diversity, and urban-to-rural enrollment patterns.
View maps →
TEACHER WORKFORCE
The people in the classroom
How the experience of Missouri’s teaching workforce has shifted by district — and where certification is thin.
View maps →
TEACHER PAY
What districts can offer
Starting pay, mid-career and career-ceiling salaries, and the state Baseline Salary Grant after SB 727.
View maps →
FUNDING & FINANCE
Where the money comes from — and what a levy actually buys
Per-pupil spending and local tax effort, plus the “dime test”: the identical 10¢ school tax raises $716 per student in one Missouri district and $39 in another. Try the calculator on any district.
View maps →
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
How students are doing
The 2025 Annual Performance Report, which districts beat the odds poverty predicts — and how far COVID set students back, five years on.
View maps →
FOUR-DAY SCHOOL WEEK
A decade of spread
Missouri runs one of the highest rates of four-day school weeks in the country. See when each district switched, what it pays, and what the calendar does — and doesn’t — change.
View maps →
RURAL VS. SUBURBAN
The Two Missouris
Same degree, same years — a $39,000 career-ceiling gap. Benefits, pensions, and tax effort, with an interactive pension calculator.
View maps →
USE THIS INFORMATION

Turn what you’ve learned into something useful

Every map and number on this site is a starting point, not an ending one. This page is about what comes next: questions worth bringing to a school board meeting, a plain read on what your legislator can and can’t change, and how to share a fact so it holds up when someone checks it.

SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS
Questions worth bringing
Specific, data-grounded questions for your own district’s next board meeting.
See the questions →
TALKING WITH A LEGISLATOR
What Jefferson City controls — and what’s local
What a state legislator can actually change, and how to reach out so it lands.
Read more →
SHARING A FACT RESPONSIBLY
How to share one fact so it lands
Tools that hand you ready-to-post text with your own district’s numbers already in it.
Try the tools →
ABOUT THE DATA

Sources & how to read the maps

The interactive maps on this site come from Dr. Jon Turner’s Tableau Public workbook Missouri School District Change, 1991–2025, built on publicly available state and federal data. Visualizations are meant to reveal trends, not to serve as an official record.

◉
The Data Explorer — every view, one page
Dr. Turner’s full Tableau workbook with all tabs: for researchers, reporters, and anyone who wants the raw views.
▤
Missouri DESE — Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
District enrollment, staffing and certification, and finance data (MCDS portal).
▦
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
Comparable federal data on enrollment, demographics, and school finance.
Reading the maps: unless a legend says otherwise, darker shading means a higher value and lighter shading a lower one. Hover any district for its exact figures, and use the tabs and toolbar on each map to change the view or reset it.
QUESTIONS OR DATA SUGGESTIONS?
Contact Dr. Jon Turner
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership · Missouri State University, Springfield MO
Get in touch