Powerful transitions

Author: Kathleen Almy

Three phrases the teacher in me never thought I would say:

1.      A law is needed to solve a problem in education.

2.      A law is helping us solve a problem in education.

3.      I’m so glad we have a law requiring an educational reform.

Normally I want legislators to stay out of the classroom and leave policy to the experts: the administrators and teachers who work day in and day out with the challenges of education. The problem is that sometimes a really good idea comes around and regardless of its value or validity, it won’t get implemented. There is many an educator, both teachers and administrators, who want the path of least resistance and are not looking to change anything. The status quo is working for them quite well. They’ve been around long enough to be skeptical of reforms that come and go and leave little more than chaos in their wake.

There is some validity in that perspective. I’ve seen many reforms haphazardly implemented without enough planning and resources and results were less than stellar.

But what if the reform comes from the integration of years of research and best practices from the field and actually has the possibility of making substantive change? That’s what transitional math is in Illinois.

“But what if the reform comes from the integration of years of research and best practices from the field and actually has the possibility of making substantive change?”

We had a law passed in 2016 called the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act (PWR Act) known as the Power Act. It had multiple facets that were intended to smooth the transition from high school to college, like competency-based education, career pathway endorsements, and transitional math courses. High schools have options under some parts of the PWR Act, but transitional math is required. Each high school must implement a transitional math course in at least one of the available pathways (STEM, non-STEM, or technical math) using the required statewide policies and competencies. Both the content of the course and the instruction have requirements. There are grading requirements as well. Together, they produce a high-quality course and experience that merits the outcome promised to it: guaranteed placement at all Illinois community colleges into the entry-level math course of their pathway as well as any accepting universities.

With my background in math reform, particularly math pathways reforms, I was immediately intrigued by the PWR Act. I was also fairly burnt out after teaching for 20 years and having seen a strike and layoffs at my college. I worked with state leaders in Illinois and proposed to help them implement the law because I knew it would not happen without leadership, support, and the integration of teachers. They took a chance on me, and I went on to lead the implementation for over two years. To say the least, I learned a lot. More on that on another day.

I’ll be sharing more specifics about the Illinois approach to transitional math in upcoming blogs as well as how other states are implementing it. But an action step you can take today is to check out the Illinois policies and competencies document available on the Illinois transitional math website. It has much more information on the specific content and policies that must be included for students to receive guaranteed placement and ensure course quality control.

Next time: Transitional math and the classroom experience

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