JEFFERSON CITY • The Missouri Legislature could be regarded as an inhospitable place for St. Louis Public Schools this year, based on the number of bills that could alter how the district does business.

Lawmakers are considering proposals that could further drain students and resources from the district by helping city parents pay for private education, while forcing the district to give away vacant school buildings not sold within two years to charter schools.

In that context, St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams arrived at the Capitol Tuesday with a PowerPoint presentation and a simple message: "Improvement has taken place."

Without getting into any fiery debates or touching on explosive bills, Adams and Rick Sullivan, president of the district's Special Administrative Board, showed members of the House and Senate education committees data that suggest children are learning more, behaving better and missing less school than in 2007, when the district lost accreditation.

That year, fewer than 20 percent of students were testing at grade level in reading or math. The passing rates for those subjects in 2011 were 33.1 percent and 30.9 percent, respectively, a growth rate that exceeds the state's.

Of its 77 schools, the number of St. Louis schools meeting federal goals set by No Child Left Behind has grown to 16, from 12. The district no longer has a deficit. Rather than finish the school year tens of millions of dollars in the red, as they customarily did in the past, officials project to finish with a $54 million surplus.

Half the principals in place in 2007 are gone, Adams said.

Five more or so will leave at the end of the school year — based on how the data say their schools are doing.

"We make decisions around data," he said. "We don't make decisions around personalities."

Lawmakers who filled the basement hearing room wanted to see numbers, not just percentages. One grilled Sullivan on why more vacant school buildings aren't being sold to charter schools. Another asked why the district doesn't have more professional development days for teachers.

"It's like starting the 100-yard dash when you're 100 yards behind to start with," Rep. Rick Stream, R-Kirkwood, said. "So you've got a ways to go."

The lawmakers refrained from addressing any of the several bills that could affect the enrollment and finances of the city district. Much of that legislation is centered on the debate over a recent Missouri Supreme Court case that affirms the right of students to transfer from unaccredited districts such as St. Louis to better schools. As the matter is tied up in court, lawmakers are considering bills to define the parameters of the student transfers while also potentially boosting student choice. Proposals include allowing successful districts to open charter schools in failing districts and creating a private school tuition scholarship fund backed by tax credits.

Instead, Tuesday's hearing was similar to a progress report Adams and Sullivan gave in January to the Missouri Board of Eduction, where they placed even greater emphasis on how close the district is to qualifying for reaccreditation. If an additional 13 sixth- through eighth-graders had scored better in communications arts last spring, Adams repeated on Tuesday, the 24,000-student district would have the one academic point needed to qualify. The state rates school districts on a 14-point scale, with zero to five points being the range for an unaccredited district. St. Louis schools have six points, but are lacking one point in the academic area.

Adams later said it's time to start rebuilding the district's image "one person at a time."

Last year, several of its schools — Kennard Classical Junior Academy, McKinley Classical Leadership Academy and Metro High School — outranked most others in the state on the Missouri Assessment Program, and typically do each year.

Sullivan said, "Visit any school at any time and you'll be surprised by the progress being made, the teaching and learning in the classrooms."

Nevertheless, two out of three St. Louis students test below grade level in reading and math.

Adams addressed the worst-performing schools — 11 of which are receiving intense scrutiny and support from the district and state through federal dollars called school improvement grants. School district officials plan to treat those schools as a "subdistrict" and continue the scrutiny and support once the federal dollars run out after next year. Their combined enrollment is about 4,000.

Adams told legislators that his staff analyzes how these children are doing on a daily basis. An emphasis on data has been a hallmark of his three years as superintendent.

"Every single day this district looks at all 72 school buildings in addition to five alternative school sites to monitor data that support attendance, suspension and expulsion data, and academics," he said. "We don't wait until the end of the year to determine how our students are doing."