Transitional Math ISBE SIS & Portability Code Information


The Illinois P-20 Network is pleased to share the following information on behalf of the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Community College Board.


In order for students to receive the full benefits of Transitional Math, the correct Illinois State Board of Education Student Information System (SIS) course code and Illinois portability codes must be utilized.  The Transitional Math SIS codes can be found below and are also within the provided portability document templates as well as the policies document, which can be found on the Illinois Transitional Math website.

Please note that there are different ISBE SIS course codes and portability codes for each of the distinct Transitional Math courses that are offered.

As always, school districts should ensure that they are uploading the correct course codes in ISBE SIS to accurately report students’ course completions.

Additionally, portability codes should be placed on the high school transcripts of students who have successfully completed a Transitional Math course. Community Colleges across Illinois utilize the portability code from the high school transcript to identify students who should be correctly placed in college credit-bearing mathematics courses.

  • STEM Pathway
    ISBE SIS Code – 02055A001
    Portability Code – TM001
  • Quantitative Literacy and Statistics Pathway
    ISBE SIS Code – 02201A001
    Portability Code – TM002
  • Tech Pathway
    ISBE SIS Code – 02153A001
    Portability Code – TM003

Implementation of Transitional Math is now entering the second semester of the second year of implementation.  We currently have over 200 approved courses across the state of Illinois.  We are excited to see the progress that school districts and students are making with the implementation of Transitional Math. Approved courses can be found on the Illinois Transitional Math website.

As a reminder, the next opportunity for Transitional Math portability submission is due on March 1, 2021, and those submissions will be considered at the Spring Portability Panel meeting on April 14, 2021.

If you have any questions regarding transitional courses, please e-mail TRInstruction@isbe.net.

January 2021

Learning – remote & in-person across the P-20 Network

As the 2020-2021 school year begins in never-seen-before fashion, school districts and postsecondary institutions are each determining the best ways to balance the needs of keeping students and staff members safe, meeting the demands of their stakeholders, and supporting students with learning and teachers and faculty with teaching.

Over the past year, as part of the NIU P-20 Research & Data Collaborative, Illinois P-20 Network staff have been deeply involved in a number of statewide research projects on topics ranging from early childhood education through postsecondary student performance. In an effort to best serve the Illinois P-20 Network, through conversations with leaders of P-20 Network partners, it has become increasingly clear that one way in which the P-20 Network can support its partners is by collecting and providing access to real-time data. To this end, P-20 Network staff have collected data from partners’ websites on the current status of their remote versus in-person learning plans for the start of the 2020-2021 school year. While the Illinois State Board of Education has also created a similar tool for analyzing remote versus in-person learning, it only includes data from about 75% of the state’s school districts that responded to ISBE’s survey request.

This data below is provided separately at each level – elementary school, middle school, high school, and postsecondary. In conducting the data collection and analysis, the P-20 Network team quickly understood that many school districts are approaching their remote and hybrid learning models in complex ways, and this led to the presentation of data in this way.

Below, there are 4 slides of data with a chart and map at each level that you can click through:

  • Postsecondary Institutions
  • High Schools
  • Middle Schools
  • Elementary Schools

Postsecondary Institutions


High Schools


Middle Schools


Elementary Schools


If the data for your organization is inaccurate, please let us know by emailing the Illinois P-20 Network.

Over the coming weeks, we will be seeking out additional data, including trying to collect the cost of COVID-19 thus far on each of your institutions, and we will be refining and improving these type of data visualizations moving forward. We look forward to bringing you more useful data in ever-more usable formats in order to best support organizations across the Illinois P-20 Network.

August 2020

The P-20 Network – Who we are collectively – June 2020

At the historic and unusual end of the 2019-2020 academic year, the P-20 Network decided to collect a small amount of demographic data and analyze the make-up of the Network based on who its students are as reported publicly via the Illinois Report Card and Illinois Postsecondary Profiles websites. This data is based on the numbers reported on those websites on June 30, 2020, which, to a large degree, is data from the previous school year (a year old). Nevertheless, it paints a relatively accurate picture of who makes up the P-20 Network. For this analysis, only data from school districts and postsecondary institutions from across the Network was studied as including the state agencies or other statewide organizations would naturally include all students and organizations across Illinois.

Overall, the P-20 Network currently includes organizations that serve over 700,000 students, and approximately half of them are served in school districts and half of them are served in postsecondary institutions.

Elementary & Secondary Students

Across the school districts that are engaged with the P-20 Network, there are 366,810 students. In general, the demographics of the P-20 Network mirror the State of Illinois with a few key differences.

Student DemographicP-20 Network (%)State (%)
Low Income 3849
Students with IEPs1516
Homeless Students22
Students learning English1312
White Students49.447.6
Black Students8.416.7
Hispanic Students28.426.4
Asian Students9.45.1
American Indian Students0.30.3
Pacific Islander Students0.10.1
Students of 2 or more races4.03.8

The school districts that participate in the P-20 Network have an overall lower percentage of low income students (38%) than Illinois does statewide (49%) and a lower percentage of students whose families identify as Black (8.4%) than does Illinois (16.7%). There is also a higher percentage of students whose families identify as Asian across the P-20 Network school districts (9.4%) than there is across the entire state (5.1%). Not represented by this data is the fact that the school districts that currently make up the P-20 Network also represent a wide variety of communities, from smaller (in population), rural farming communities to urban centers to a wide range of suburban communities featuring many different types of housing and commercial areas. The range of careers that make up the communities represented across the P-20 Network is arguably as diverse as anywhere in the United States.

Despite these differences, the general diversity of students across Illinois is represented by the school districts across the P-20 Network, and regardless of comparisons, the students being served across these school districts represent a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.

Postsecondary Students

As a result of the efforts of the Illinois Community College Board, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Illinois Postsecondary Profiles website offers a wealth of data about students in higher education in Illinois. This data is not aggregated statewide like it is in the Illinois Report Card, and there is not data included about how old students are or what their pathways to their current postsecondary experiences are. (For example, the question how many current community college students already have a Bachelor’s Degree? is not answered by this data.) Nevertheless, there are some important data points we can begin to track across the P-20 Network.

Student DemographicP-20 Network (%)
Full-Time Students41
Part-Time Students59
White Students48
Black Students11
Hispanic Students25
Asian Students7

From even this brief data set, there are a number of important points for analysis. First, the percentages of full-time versus part-time students has significant implications for instruction, schooling, and supports. Most of the postsecondary institutions in the P-20 Network are community colleges (20 of the 25 postsecondary institutions), and the high number of part-time students is not new or uncommon in community colleges. Nevertheless, it is important information for programming and supports and ensuring advancement and degree completion. With regards to the race/ethnicity data points, the enrollment of postsecondary students across P-20 Network institutions closely reflects the demographic characteristics of the population of elementary and secondary students with Black students being underrepresented in postsecondary institutions in comparison to the percentage of the current K-12 student population statewide and with Asian students being represented at a higher percentage in postsecondary institutions than they are in the current K-12 student population statewide.

Overall, the P-20 Network is very diverse, and educational successes across the P-20 Network are successes that can likely be replicated across Illinois, the United States, and beyond.

Thank you to P-20 Network Graduate Research Assistant Sadia Qamar for the data collection and methodology work done that served as the foundation for this analysis.

June 2020

Illinois Longitudinal Data System – An Introduction

The Illinois Longitudinal Data System (ILDS) was formed in 2013 as a collaborative body to facilitate the linkage of records across state agencies over time.  The objective was to more efficiently analyze data and program impacts across data systems to improve education, human services, and workforce outcomes.  By linking these records, research involving various data sources across multiple agencies could increase program efficiency and effectiveness.

To oversee record linkage, the ILDS selected Northern Illinois University (NIU) as the Centralized Demographic Dataset Administrator (CDDA) in 2015.  The ILDS pursued a federated model for the data system that allows each agency to maintain its own data and policies regarding use of that data, while allowing the CDDA to use data from the state agencies to match records and maintain a Master Client Index (MCI).  Contained in the MCI are a select number of fields and the CDDA-IDs, which provide the basis for supporting research involving records from across several state agencies.

Progress towards providing the CDDA-IDs for school districts and post-secondary institutions is being made.  As these IDs become more accessible for districts and institutions, there are increasing opportunities to conduct research using data from multiple state agencies.  Additionally, the IDs can support improved data sharing and research at the local level between school districts and postsecondary institutions.  To learn more about the potential of using CDDA-IDs for your district’s or institution’s research interests, please contact William Holderfield of Northern Illinois University’s Center for Governmental Studies at wholderfield1@niu.edu.

May 2020

P-20 Research & Data Collaborative – Ready to help your organization with research and data

The P-20 Network is a proud partner with key departments and academic units at Northern Illinois University in the NIU P-20 Research & Data Collaborative.

The NIU P-20 Research & Data Collaborative empowers your progress with data and research initiatives within your organizations that are crucial to making informed decisions in this critical time. Whether generating, understanding, managing or engaging with data and research, the Collaborative has project experience and staff with that expertise. Our current data and research portfolio includes projects with:

  • local school districts
  • local government agencies
  • statewide policy
  • workforce development
  • early childhood programming

Please reach out to the P-20 Research & Data Collaborative or the P-20 Network to see how we can support your organization with meeting specific data and research needs.

  • Alan Clemens, Director of Illinois Interactive Report Cards at Northern Illinois University
  • Jason Klein, Director of P-20 Initiatives
April 2020