Why did Missouri’s education agency pull report card resources from its website?

Missouri’s education agency removed its mandatory report cards from its website in November for an update and has yet to republish the entirety of previous resources with new 2024 data.

“Where did the report cards go?” asked Dr. Susan Pendergrass, director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute, in the title of a blog post Wednesday about the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) website changes.

“DESE had a school report card web page until recently, when it disappeared with no indication of whether the report cards are being updated or ever coming back,” wrote the policy expert, who has been calling on DESE to make more parent-friendly report cards. 

“Information about the performance of schools in Missouri is very difficult to find and not user friendly,” wrote Pendergrass with other Show-Me authors in a 2025 policy Blueprint. “When done well, report cards can be a useful and valuable way to communicate school information to parents.” 

Pendergrass told The Lion the data area of the website had recently contained drop down menu items and other resources for report cards that are no longer available. 

The Lion asked DESE what changes had been made and why, and whether DESE is out of compliance with federal requirements for publishing report card data. 

“The report card information is removed from the MCDS portal for a few weeks every year while DESE processes and validates new data from LEAs and third-party assessment vendors before publishing,” wrote Chief Communications Officer Mallory McGowin in an email. 

McGowin says DESE’s data website warned users on Nov. 5 that report cards would not be available while the agency updated them with 2024 data by the federally-required Dec. 1 deadline. 

“The report card was removed from the MCDS portal on November 8, 2024,” she went on. “The report card was re-published to the MCDS portal with 2024 data on November 21, 2024, and the message above was removed. At this time the only remaining visualizations that are not currently available are those that are nonmandatory; those visualizations are being validated before adding to the MCDS portal.” 

The Lion has asked McGowin to explain what the “validation” of nonmandatory visualizations involves and when those will be published.