ABOUT
The Louies:
Supporting the Work that Works
The Louies celebrate public and public charter schools that foster high academic growth regardless of students’ starting point.
The Louie Award Advisory Group
An advisory group with significant and diverse experience in education developed the final criteria for the 2026 Louie Awards. This group included Collin Hitt (the Director of PriME Center) Saras Chung (Director, Social System Design Lab Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis), Dr. Kelvin Adams (President and CEO of St. Louis Community Foundation and past Superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools (“SLPS”)), Stacy Clay (former Deputy Superintendent at SLPS), and Michael Dierberg (President of Gateway to Success Foundation).
award criteria
For the 2026 Louie Awards, there will be 20 finalist awards given to elementary and middle schools – ten finalists for ELA and ten finalists for Math. Of that group of finalists, 10 Louie Awards will be given out – five for each subject. Finalists for an award are selected based on academic growth from grades three to eight, measured over the most recent three-year period. The Louie Awards are then given to those finalists with the most student growth in the most recent school year.
WHY THE GROWTH MODEL
Our award criteria were designed in consultation with St. Louis University’s Prime Center. The Prime Center recommends recognizing schools based on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (“DESE’s”) student growth test data from grades three to eight.
All public and public charter students in Missouri are required to take this test beginning in the third grade. This measure of success uses testing data to track how much academic progress students make from the end of one year to the end of the next. The Missouri Growth dataset tracks students across schools, and thus is able to fairly reflect academic growth from the prior year despite student mobility.
We believe recognizing schools based on academic growth provides a level playing field because unlike proficiency rates, academic growth is not correlated with family income. Sustained improvement in student proficiency ultimately depends on strong academic growth from one year to the next.
About the Gateway to Success Foundation
The Gateway to Success Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to advancing quality public education through the recognition of successful public and public charter schools in the Saint Louis region. The Gateway to Success Foundation was started in 2025 with the primary goal of creating, funding and operating the annual Louie Awards.
For additional information about Missouri Growth data and the value of this measure in evaluating schools’ academic performance see the following:
RESOURCES
