Standards, Rigor & Strong Transitions
All students deserve a learning experience that prepares them for success in their postsecondary education, career, and life. A successful postsecondary journey depends on college and career-ready learning standards, rigorous coursework, and strong transitions.
Learning standards describe what a student in a particular grade should know and be able to do. Although standards are often confused with curricula, it is important to note the difference. Standards are goals for student understanding, while curricula are the paths to get there.
Rigor is the academic or intellectual challenge of a class. Rigorous coursework and instruction are fundamental to student engagement and achievement and a critical part of setting students up for postsecondary success.
Strong transitions are processes that prepare students and families to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and relationships to assist students in successfully moving from one setting to another (e.g., pre-kindergarten to kindergarten, elementary to middle school).
Setting Up Students for Postsecondary Success
Preparing students for college and career is first and foremost about ensuring students are acquiring the knowledge and developing the skills they need to succeed in today’s modern economy. Ensuring all students are provided the learning opportunities and support necessary to be ready for postsecondary success requires:
College- and Career-Ready Learning Standards. Research shows that holding students to high expectations improves students’ academic success, self-esteem, motivation, and willingness to take on new and challenging tasks. Statewide learning standards aimed at college- and career- readiness are an important lever for ensuring we hold high expectations for all students and support them in reaching those expectations.
Rigorous Coursework. Rigorous coursework is the gateway to college- and career- readiness. Research shows participating in advanced high school coursework like AP, IB, or dual credit significantly increases a student’s likelihood of enrolling in and completing college.
Strong Transitions. Transitions, like from pre-school to kindergarten and from middle to high school, are often challenging for students and are extremely important to get right. Research shows receiving strong support during times of transition has long-term effects on factors like academic performance, social-emotional learning, and postsecondary completion.
Striving For Equitable Access to Education
We believe all students must have access to education aligned with college and career-ready learning standards, rigorous coursework, and strong transitions. Rigorous coursework is the gateway to college and career readiness, ensuring students are prepared to start college without having to enroll in costly remedial courses and to find skilled positions that offer financial security and room to grow professionally.
Our work on this goal:
COVID-19 is having an unprecedented impact on education and in Illinois. As part of our COVID-19 recovery and rebuilding plan, Advance Illinois is advocating and working to ensure that the state has a robust and comprehensive recovery plan that gets and keeps all our students on track.
We are participating in the Illinois State Board of Education’s Black History Curriculum Task Force (House Resolution 1098) to review and audit Illinois district African American History curricula. Our aim is to better understand the current state to inform efforts to strengthen and improve the quality and rigor of social studies standards and instructional materials moving forward.
We have partnered with EdSystems at Northern Illinois University and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to support a network of communities committed to the goal of ensuring that 60 percent of adults have a college or career credential by 2025. Participants in the Illinois 60 by 25 Network are working to provide rigorous academics in engaging, real-world learning environments that inspire students to imagine and achieve brighter futures for themselves and their communities.
We continue to spotlight course rigor and transition successes, opportunities, and equity gaps in our research and reports, such as our biannual report, a The State We’re In: 2019.
We served as a leader for HB 5729, the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act, which was signed into law in July of 2016.