The Point of the Point: Washington’s Student Achievement Initiative through the Looking Glass of a Community College
Article
Li, AY. (2017). The Point of the Point: Washington’s Student Achievement Initiative through the Looking Glass of a Community College
. COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 41(3), 183-202. 10.1080/10668926.2016.1179601
Li, AY. (2017). The Point of the Point: Washington’s Student Achievement Initiative through the Looking Glass of a Community College
. COMMUNITY COLLEGE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 41(3), 183-202. 10.1080/10668926.2016.1179601
For 8 years Washington State has operated a performance funding policy, the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI). The policy allocates appropriations to the state’s 34 community and technical colleges based on points earned through student achievement of college-readiness, retention, and completion milestones. Grounded in a conceptual framework of principal-agent theory, this study explored one community college case to examine knowledge of, perspectives on, and responses to the SAI. Through semi-structured interviews with seven faculty, administrators, and staff, combined with document analysis, five themes emerged: information transmission, initiating the initiative, the point of the point, consequences of imperfect data, and faculty skepticism. This study concludes with implications and recommendations for practice and policy.
