Student Achievement Initiative 3.0: A Policy Focus on Equity. Research Report 20-4.1
Author: Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
Date: 2020-09-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Academic Achievement,State Policy,Educational Policy,Community Colleges,Technical Education,Best Practices,Outcomes of Education,Performance Based Assessment,College Readiness,College Credits,Educational Finance,Equal Education,Credentials,Program Descriptions,Disadvantaged,Program Evaluation,Achievement Gap,Educational Change,Adult Basic Education,Academic Persistence,Associate Degrees,College Transfer Students,Institutional Evaluation,Hispanic American Students

The Student Achievement Initiative (SAI) is the guiding framework for the Washington state community and technical college system's goals for student success. SAI emphasizes student momentum for college success by both building college readiness (such as basic skills gains and completion of precollege education, sometimes known as developmental education) and earning college credits, including college math and English. SAI has been the performance-based funding (PBF) system for the community and technical colleges since 2006. The system underwent reviews in 2012 and 2016, following national experts' recommendations for continuous evaluation of PBF systems to ensure its overall goals and principles are being met and to incorporate best practices. In the 2016 review, new guiding principles were established that reflected a focus on college-level credit accrual leading to credential attainment and closing equity gaps for historically underserved students. The review included an analysis of student outcomes with the goal of identifying group differences and how revisions might aid student populations who are falling behind. Based on that analysis, the SAI framework was revised to emphasize success in transitioning from basic skills and precollege to college-level, college English/Communication attainment, and retention and completion for historically underserved students. These changes included additional weighting of the milestones for the first 15 college-level credits and degree and apprenticeship attainment, a new 6 credit transition milestone for basic education students, a de-emphasis on precollege course completion and a new emphasis on English/Communication college-level attainment. The 2016 revisions to the SAI milestones became effective as of the 2017-18 year. This paper is organized into three main sections. The first section provides a five-year summary of the key milestone areas from SAI 2.0 that influenced revisions for 3.0 and highlights colleges who have made the highest gains in each area. The second section analyzes the outcomes from the changes made in SAI 3.0 to focus on equity, henceforth referred to as &quot;equity points.&quot; This analysis studies the number and proportion of equity points earned over a three-year time period and highlights the top five colleges who have made the most gains. The third section focuses on outcomes for the Basic Education for Adults population and again highlights colleges whose populations are making the most gains in college-level progression and earning the most equity points in the system.