Dive Brief:
- In Texas, high schoolers struggling with the math skills needed to succeed in college courses now receive a targeted college-prep math course.
- The development is the result of a state law passed in 2013, intended to help prevent remediation and aid students' transition to college.
- Higher ed and K-12 education institutions collaborate on the courses, which allow students who pass to skip over basic college math courses and enter higher level courses.
Dive Insight:
Remediation has proved to be a pretty ineffective strategy for keeping students on track to succeed in college. Community college students who take remedial courses are far less likely to graduate than those who enter college-ready. As a result, schools and states have begun to experiment with innovative approaches to either prevent or reform remediation.
Texas' approach is one of the more aggressive, in that it helps prevent remediation at the K-12 level and allows those who successfully complete the K-12 course to leapfrog into higher courses. It allows K-12 schools to work with colleges and universities to understand the requirements, a relatively new development in education.