Essential Elements of State Policy: Transitional Courses

3.Ensure that all students (or a certain range of students based on achievement) be assessed for college readiness no later than the junior year.

4. Ensure that the qualifying scores on assessment(s) used to identify students who need the courses are strongly associated with success in in first-year, credit-bearing courses in college.

5. Ensure that students assessed as meeting the readiness standards will not have to take a placement exam for entry-level courses once admitted to postsecondary education, although additional testing may be required to determine specific courses that are beyond basic, entry level.

6. Ensure that all public high schools statewide offer readiness/transitional courses and that students take the courses if they do not perform at or above the cut score.

7. Ensure that the readiness/transitional courses carry high school credit and are eligible to be funded through the public school funding formula.

8. Ensure that the math readiness/transitional course is creditable as a fourth-year math course in high school.

9. Ensure that all public postsecondary institutions and agencies are partners with K-12 in developing, testing, evaluating and revising readiness/transitional courses.

10. Ensure that public postsecondary institutions statewide recognize that the successful completion of a readiness/transitional course means readiness to begin credit-bearing, college-level courses without remediation.

11. Provide professional development on the readiness/transitional courses to all high school teachers.

12. Develop a statewide system for evaluation of the readiness/transitional courses and professional development activities to determine their effectiveness and impact on increasing the numbers of students leaving high school college- and career-ready.