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IS IT WORKING? NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON PERFORMANCE-BASED FUNDING POLICIES IN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION by James Capp A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College for Design and Social Inquiry in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL August 2019 Copyright 2019 by James Capp ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The unrelenting support of my loved ones bears most of the credit for this work. Years ago, over some pints on Atlantic Avenue, I shook Cara Jean Capp’s hand as a sign of our commitment to embark on this endeavor. My doctoral studies left her carrying the brunt of parenthood and marriage. Running on intermittent sleep, she often left the house before sunrise to meet in the Everglades with presidents, senators, and governors. Yet she read the awful drafts and offered me honest guidance. She kept the coffee on the stove when the nights were long. We survived loss, and miracles, and broken bones, and a flood. All the while, she was my rock. Thank you for your strength and grace, Cara. I also owe my family immense gratitude. The Piccirillos have loved me as their own, offering me stability when I needed it most. The Capps have muddled through some of life’s most trying times and come out more resilient. Most of all, I’ve got three bonafied blessings in Virginia Ellen, Nora Elizabeth, and the new soul I’m very much looking forward to meeting next spring. At night when I finished writing or came home late from class, I stopped at your beds to thank God for each of you. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to love you and to be your father. There is no greater joy in my life. Lastly, thanks to those who listened to my rants about public policy and good governance, including my dissertation committee, the amigos, the Provost’s Office, and friends who have shared drinks, meals, and coffee with me. There are too many of you to name. I appreciate the sanity you bring me and the decency you bring to our world. iv ABSTRACT Author: James Capp Title: Is it Working? Narrative Perspectives on Performance-based Funding Policies in Public Higher Education Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Alka Sapat Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2019 Public higher education increasingly relies on performance-based funding (PBF) policies to enhance accountability. These policies attempt to steer institutions towards successful outcomes via performance indicators, such as graduation rates. Nationally, PBF policies continue to grow in popularity despite limited evidence that they are effective (Hillman, Tandberg, and Gross, 2014). Motivated by the apparent conflict between the widespread adoption of PBF policies and the lack of evidence that they actually improve outcomes in higher education, this dissertation investigates the perceived impacts of PBF policies. Florida’s public university system serves as the setting for the study due to its uniquely punitive PBF policy design and the model’s non-standardized performance indicators. The dissertation assumes the theoretical stance of Stone (1989), in which stories define problems and drive the policy process. Additionally, the dissertation uses the narrative policy framework (NPF) for its qualitative analysis, drawing on the coding v framework of Shanahan et al. (2013), including narrative elements and strategies. The research questions focus on 1) understanding stakeholders and their views of PBF policies, 2) exploring the stakeholders’ perceptions regarding the impacts of such policies, and 3) articulating the overarching narratives and values of stakeholders. Public documents reveal the official narrative perspectives among Florida’s Board of Governors (BOG) system and the individual universities. The dissertation finds disparate views on the impact of the state’s PBF policy. The BOG system presents Florida’s policy makers as businesslike heroes who delivered a novel PBF policy to guide strategic enhancements. In contrast, universities set priorities according to historic missions but increasingly note their own compliance with the policy. Furthermore, infrequent but compelling uses of villains and victims in narratives highlight deep-rooted differences in perspectives between policy makers and implementers. Methodologically, the analysis also suggests that NPF’s structural archetypes might assume excessive conflict, noting how a more interpretivist narrative analysis could result in less adversarial findings. In practice, PBF policies could benefit from recommendations to increase the focus on institutional missions, to formalize a forum for critiquing and enhancing the model, and to refine the policy’s focus on social mobility – all for the betterment of students and the public. vi For Mom IS IT WORKING? NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON PERFORMANCE-BASED FUNDING POLICIES IN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................1 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 2 Performance-based Funding ......................................................................................... 4 Narrative Analysis ........................................................................................................ 7 Significance, Implications and Dissertation Roadmap ................................................. 9 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...........................................................................11 Traditions of Accountability in Public Administration .............................................. 12 Narrative Policy Framework ....................................................................................... 16 NPF’s Structuralist Approach ..................................................................................... 22 National Trends in Performance-based Funding ........................................................ 27 Bodies of Literature .................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 3. POLICY CONTEXT ..................................................................................36 viii Florida’s Budgetary Environment for Public Universities ......................................... 40 Performance-based Funding in Florida’s Public University System .......................... 42 Benchmarking Improvement versus Excellence ......................................................... 45 Linking Scores to Funding .......................................................................................... 48 Technical Review of Florida’s Metrics....................................................................... 50 Metric #1 – Percent of bachelor's graduates employed and/or continuing education in the United States. .......................................................... 51 Metric #2 – Median wages of bachelor’s graduates employed full-time. ............. 53 Metric #3 – Cost per undergraduate degree. ......................................................... 54 Metric #4 – First-time-in-college student graduation rate. ................................... 56 Metric #5 – Academic progress rate (second year retention with a grade point average above 2.0). ............................................................................ 58 Metric #6 – Percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded in areas of strategic emphasis. ........................................................................................... 58 Metric #7 – University access rate (percent of undergraduates who are eligible to receive a Pell grant). ......................................................... 60 Metric #8 – Percent of graduate degrees awarded in areas of strategic emphasis. ........................................................................................... 61 Metric #9 – Board of Governors’ choice metric. .................................................. 61 Metric #10 – Board of Trustees’ choice metric. ................................................... 63 The Evolving Policy Design for Florida’s Performance-based Funding .................... 64 CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ......................................67 ix Data Collection Process .............................................................................................. 67 Work Plans ........................................................................................................... 70 Accountability Reports ......................................................................................... 71 BOG System Documents, Media, and Reports ..................................................... 72 Identified Policy Narratives: Elements, Codes, and Themes ...................................... 73 Qualitative Review...................................................................................................... 77 Limitations .................................................................................................................. 80 Coding Framework ..................................................................................................... 81 CHAPTER 5. ANALYSIS OF FLORIDA BOARD OF GOVERNORS SYSTEM

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