When Systems Talk, Students Thrive

Too many students arrive at college only to find themselves repeating high school math or enrolling in courses that are not relevant to their college and career interests. The reason is simple: High schools and colleges have not always worked together to ensure that K–12 curriculum aligns with the goals and expectations of higher education.

Fortunately, education leaders in numerous states are reversing that trend by co-designing strategies that streamline students’ journeys from high school to college. One refreshing example is Georgia’s 2020–21 math standards revision. Rather than develop new math pathways in isolation, K–12 education leaders intentionally involved higher education math faculty on curriculum design teams.

This shared ownership of curriculum ensured that the new standards, including a modernized Algebra II course, would be approved by public higher education institutions as meeting their entry requirements. Education leaders also sought input from industry partners to be sure that the standards aligned with workforce expectations as well. 

The co-design of high school courses is one of five cross-system strategies highlighted in Just Equations’ new report, Aligned by Design: How Cross-System Math Alignment Can Improve Students’ Pathways From High School to College. All five strategies offer ways that state systems can work together to smooth students’ paths from high school to college. Doing so is important to ensure that students are not burdened with repetition of high school course content in college, math courses that lack relevance to their goals, or assignment to remedial math sequences based on placement tests with questionable validity. 

Georgia’s example shows what’s possible when partnership starts early. 

In Oregon, math leaders pursued a slightly different route to collaboration. The state’s K–12 system developed new math standards in 2022 after several years of conversations between higher education math faculty and K–12 teachers. The new model reduced the required set of courses from three years to two, giving students multiple course options for their third and fourth years of high school. The fact that college math faculty provided early input was helpful when it came time for Oregon universities to update admissions language to reflect the revised high school course sequences.  

Building a Culture of Collaboration

As we examined the various approaches, a few things became clear: 

• Sustaining effective collaboration is a long-term commitment. In both Georgia and Oregon, these partnerships reflect at least two decades of ongoing work. 
• Math task forces and working groups can help launch change, but lasting progress requires decision-making authority and shared accountability. Of the 31 such structures developed around the country, the level of activity and impact varies widely. Often, such groups can only recommend actions for other governance bodies to implement. 
• Measuring the impact of policies and partnerships is crucial. Understanding whether new policies improve equity and student success depends on accurate, timely longitudinal data that connect K–12 and higher education systems. 
• State-level policies can support instructional improvement, but they need to be complemented by school- and college-level implementation by administrators, counselors, and especially math instructors. Such work requires state investment. 

Course co-design and alignment of admissions requirements are not the only ways to support streamlined math preparation. In a statement developed by higher education faculty, California has defined clear, transparent expectations with the goal of confirming that students’ high school math courses prepare them for college study in their intended fields. Tennessee’s readiness courses have afforded students the opportunity to leverage their senior year of high school to become ready to start college-level math without the need for remedial courses. And Utah’s dual-enrollment courses increased senior-year math coursetaking while expanding the range of math courses available to students and reducing the need for college remedial courses. 

College readiness is not only about standards or coursework; it is about communication. Sustainable improvement relies on ongoing cross-system collaborations with shared accountability. Alignment is not a one-time policy—it evolves over time through effective and consistent communication and mutual respect between systems. When education systems talk to one another, students have stronger preparation and a clearer path from high school to college.