Black students in Kansas City 33 graduated at 89.1 percent in Missouri's 2025 four-year cohort. White students in St. Louis City graduated at 79.8 percent. The gap was 9.3 percentage points in Kansas City's favor.

In 2019, the comparison ran the other direction. KC's Black graduation rate was 67.5 percent and STL's white rate was 71.3 percent. St. Louis's white students finished 3.8 points ahead. The comparison first flipped in 2020, flipped back to St. Louis in 2022, then moved back to Kansas City in 2023 and reached its widest margin in the 2019-2025 graduation dataset in 2025.

What changed

Direct evidence: KC's Black graduation rate rose 21.6 percentage points from 2019 to 2025, from 67.5 percent to 89.1 percent. Among Missouri district race subgroups with at least 100 students in both the 2019 and 2025 cohorts, that was the largest improvement in the package's 2019-2025 graduation dataset. STL's white rate rose 8.5 points, from 71.3 percent to 79.8 percent.

The crossover was not simply a larger KC cohort. Kansas City 33's Black cohort was smaller in 2025 than in 2019: 585 students versus 695. It produced 521 graduates in 2025, compared with 469 in 2019. At the 2019 graduation rate, a 585-student cohort would have produced about 395 graduates; the 2025 outcome was about 126 graduates above that baseline.

The full picture in 2025

Looking at both race groups in both cities in 2025 puts the divergence in context:

• KC Black: 89.1 percent
• KC White: 87.4 percent
• STL White: 79.8 percent
• STL Black: 71.2 percent

Kansas City 33's Black graduation rate was 1.7 points higher than its white rate in 2025. Among the 29 Missouri districts with at least 50 Black students and 50 white students in the 2025 four-year cohort, Kansas City 33 was one of nine where Black students graduated at a higher rate than white students.

St. Louis City moved differently. Its overall four-year graduation rate was 70.3 percent in 2025, 22.4 points below Missouri's 92.7 percent state rate. Its Black graduation rate was 71.2 percent, 0.7 points lower than in 2019.

What the data can say

Direct evidence: the graduation file shows a rate-and-graduate-count shift, not a larger-cohort shift. Kansas City 33 had fewer Black students in the 2025 four-year cohort than in the 2019 cohort, but it had 52 more Black graduates.

Unresourced: the package does not identify which policies, staffing changes, attendance changes, or school-level interventions caused KC's gain. It shows the outcome, not the mechanism.

Data source

Analysis based on graduation data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.