The PWR Act established a new statewide system for transitional math and English instruction that increases high school seniors’ college readiness and reduces remedial education needs. Successful completion of transitional instruction provides students with guaranteed placement into college-level courses at Illinois community colleges and accepting Illinois universities.
Ultimately, transitional instruction seeks to ensure students transition into postsecondary, succeed in gateway college-level math and English courses, and progress efficiently through their education at reduced costs. As these efforts have scaled since the PWR Act, enrollment in transitional math has grown to more than 1,000 students in the 2023 school year. With this growth, the state has seen remediation rates decrease overall: enrollment in remedial math coursework declined from 41.1% for the graduating class of 2013 to 19.6% for the class of 2021.
Our Role
To ensure effective and equitable implementation of transitional instruction, EdSystems has provided critical support to stakeholders and policymakers from the outset of transitional instruction policy development and implementation and seeks to continue deepening that work to drive impact on student outcomes. Currently, EdSystems support includes:
- Coordination of interagency convenings with the Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Board of Higher Education, and Illinois Student Assistance Commission to ensure statewide policies and implementation activities are properly supported and utilize relevant data for continuous improvement. Coordination ensures the needs of key stakeholders such as community colleges, portability panel members, agency staff supporting implementation, and others, are met.
- Leadership of biannual interagency data reviews to examine the state landscape of transitional instruction and identify areas for agency action. These meetings explore data around student participation, student outcomes, and implementation indicators to inform continuous improvement processes across the agencies.
- Support for community colleges to effectively work with their local partners to develop, deliver, and enhance transitional instruction activities to support student progression into postsecondary through gateway math and English courses and onto completion. This includes developing resources and guidance, and hosting community data utilization workshops.
- Support for portability panels, with a focus on increasing clarity and alignment while addressing differences in process and persistent challenges faced by communities applying for portability. Ultimately, this will promote increased student access to courses approved for portability.
- Collaboration with ROE 47 to plan and promote an annual transitional English summit.
Prior Work
EdSystems launched and managed the interagency process that led to uniform transitional math competencies and policies and a statewide implementation plan shared in the Statewide Transitional Math Competencies and Policies guide. Under the plan, all school districts in Illinois were expected to implement transitional math instruction by no later than the 2022–23 school year.
EdSystems led a parallel effort to launch transitional English across the state. In early 2021, the Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Community College Board, and Illinois Board of Higher Education adopted the Statewide Transitional English Course Parameters, Competencies, and Policies (read the announcement).
To support local implementation of transitional instruction, EdSystems engaged in conversations with established Local Advisory Panels across the state to develop a guidance document that includes best practices and learnings for communities to utilize and adapt in their local course review processes.
Project Resources
- Transitional English Course Parameters, Competencies, and Policies
- Transitional English Resources
- Transitional Math Resources
- Transitional Math Competencies and Policies
- Transitional Math Website
- Transitional Math Implementation in Illinois: Investigating Secondary and Postsecondary Implementation and Data Utilization
- Illinois University Participation in Transitional Math
- Local Advisory Panels for Transitional Instruction: Processes, Promising Practices, and Lessons Learned
