The Point of the Point: Washington’s Student Achievement Initiative through the Looking Glass of a Community College

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.