With a strong 95-2 vote in the House of Representatives, it seems that Rep. Fred Jarrett’s (D-Mercer Island) long-time goal of using performance agreements to link higher education funding with clearly understood accountability measures may actually be on the brink of becoming state law.
EHB 2641 would establish six-year pilot performance agreements with all of the state’s four year institutions beginning with the next biennial budget cycle. The idea, however, is not new. Rep. Jarrett and Rep. Skip Priest (R-Federal Way) have been championing this idea ever since the state’s last economic downturn in 2002 when they watched the state slash spending for higher education, increase tuition significantly, but not adjust any expectations for what could be reasonably be accomplished by the institutions.
Today’s Seattle Times published an editorial in favor of the legislation as it heads to the Senate and a public hearing tomorrow in the Higher Education Committee. For those of you interested in how the performance agreement process would work, here’s a link to the current version of the bill.