The Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act (PWR Act) includes Transitional Math (TM), which is built around courses, standalone or embedded, that increase college readiness for high school seniors. Their key feature is the guaranteed placement a student receives upon successful completion at all Illinois community colleges and accepting Illinois universities. Community colleges and high schools work in partnership to create courses that incorporate the required competencies and policies. These courses emphasize authentic learning experiences aligned with careers as well as a student’s life and future coursework. The goal is to provide high school seniors with a new experience that is motivating as well as valuable in respect to the college placement achieved.
Scaling transitional math according to the PWR Act is a mass effort by multiple state agencies and organizations in Illinois.
Students that have completed 3 years of high school math, but are still in need of satisfying a "college readiness" measure needed to enroll in a college-level math course (for a list of Harper College's "college readiness" measures, click here).
Yes, there are three possible pathways, though not all options are available at all high schools. The three pathways are:
1. Transition to Quantitative Literacy/Statistics - this course is what's administered at most District 211. 214 & 220 high schools and would lead to placement into Harper's MTH101 - "Quantitative Literacy" and MTH165 - "Elementary Statistics" courses.
2. Transition to STEM - this course, coupled with satisfaction of the geometry requirement, would lead to placement into Harper's MTH103 - "College Algebra" course.
3. Transition to Technical Math - this course is very specialized and would lead to placement into Harper's MTH097 - "Basic Technical Mathematics".
