Metrics, Dollars, and Systems Change: Learning from Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative to Design Effective Postsecondary Performance Funding Policies

In a recent report, the Community College Research Center and the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy present findings from a three-year evaluation of Washington State’s postsecondary education performance funding system, the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI).  The report updates findings from a 2011 report and shares new observations on the system’s results.  Additionally, this report makes suggestions for states considering a similar performance funding system.

Among the report’s findings:

• Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative (SAI), which is the state’s second wave of performance funding, is distinguished by two innovations.
  • The SAI measures and rewards colleges for students’ intermediate achievements (such as completing a college-level math course or earning a certain number of credits) in addition to completion.
  • The SAI provides data to colleges to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses and take steps to improve their student completion rates.
• Although recent updates and changes to the SAI addressed valid concerns from colleges using it, the report authors identify remaining challenges that may provide insight for other states looking to implement a similar system.
  • The SAI’s metrics were designed to communicate with lawmakers and the public but did not help colleges figure out how to improve, nor did they provide help in interpreting their results.
  • Colleges may require a different set of metrics than state policymakers so that faculty and staff can understand which practices and policies may need to change in order to achieve better results.
  • The data generated by a system like the SAI should be widely disseminated and faculty and staff should be engaged in the process of improvement if institutional improvement is to be achieved.
    • Too often, faculty and staff on campuses using the SAI were frustrated or confused with what the data meant or how to use it to drive change. 
  • Performance funding systems should be sure to utilize a funding formula that does not disadvantage colleges for serving vulnerable populations.
  • Money for a system such as the SAI should be part of the institution’s baseline funding and integrated into the institution’s core operations.