First Research on MOScholars Finds Satisfied Families and Encouraging Academic Results

For the first time, Missouri has research showing how students in the MOScholars scholarship program are doing in school.

Two new reports from the PRiME Center at Saint Louis University looked at the first three years of MOScholars. One examined student test scores. The other looked at surveys from participating families.

Together, they offer an encouraging first look: MOScholars students are keeping pace with students across the country, while parents report very high satisfaction with their children’s education.

Students are keeping pace nationally

MOScholars students take nationally normed tests that compare their performance with students across the country.

In 2024-25, participating students with valid scores averaged at the 51st national percentile in English Language Arts and the 49th percentile in math—very close to the national midpoint.

Those results are notable because MOScholars serves a large number of students with disabilities. In 2024-25, 41% of tested students with valid scores had an Individualized Education Program, or IEP.

Students with IEPs averaged at the 46th percentile in English Language Arts and the 42nd percentile in math. Students without IEPs averaged at the 54th percentile in English Language Arts and the 52nd percentile in math.

Researchers also followed students with test results available for more than one year. Those students generally maintained their national ranking from year to year, meaning they were progressing at about the same rate as their peers across the country.

There was one particularly encouraging finding. Students with IEPs who had scores in both 2023-24 and 2024-25 gained nearly three percentile points in English Language Arts. The change was statistically significant.

Parents report high satisfaction

A separate PRiME study looked at parent satisfaction over the same three years. The most recent survey included responses from 1,756 households.

In 2024-25:

• 99% were satisfied with their child’s academic achievement compared with their previous school.
• 98% were satisfied with school safety.
• 99% were satisfied with MOScholars overall.

Parents also identified areas for improvement. Researchers analyzed 2,763 written responses across the three years. Families asked for better communication, simpler applications, more flexibility in using scholarship funds and improvements to the ClassWallet payment system.

ClassWallet received the lowest satisfaction scores of the areas measured, although 91% of parents still reported being satisfied with it in 2024-25.

What the research doesn’t tell us

There are important limits to the findings.

The study does not compare MOScholars students with a similar group of students who did not participate. That means it cannot show that MOScholars caused the academic results.

The increase in average English Language Arts scores from the 46th percentile in the program’s first year to the 51st percentile in its third year also does not mean individual students gained five percentile points. The students tested changed from year to year.

Researchers received valid scores for about 77% of students required to take an assessment during the three-year period. And MOScholars students generally take national assessments, while Missouri public schools use the MAP test, so the results cannot be directly compared.

An encouraging starting point

MOScholars is still a young program, and these studies provide a baseline rather than a final verdict.

So far, students are performing near national averages. Students tracked over time are generally keeping pace with their peers. And parents report very high satisfaction with their children’s academics, safety and the program overall.

As MOScholars grows and researchers collect more years of data, Missouri will get a clearer picture of its long-term results.

For now, the first three years provide an encouraging starting point.

Review the research here and the parent satisfaction survey here.