Once again, a state funding education because it is legally required to do so is not an option: we have to create a sexy new model for it instead. Thank you, Gov. Jay Nixon.

Though this model is shiny and new, as the task force to find an alternative way of funding higher education has just been put together by the governor, I think we can all see where this is going: It’s the No Child Left Behind law 2.0 for public colleges and universities in the state of Missouri.

Nixon’s new plan, which he presented to university presidents and chancellors at his Governor’s Summit on Higher Education in August, spelled out a task force with different educational leaders across the state. It will be the jobs of the force, as well as the college and universities in question, to pinpoint goals for their schools by the year 2013. At that time, schools will receive funding based on how many of their goals they meet. So, if a school meets half of its goals, it gets half of its funding. Nixon claims this will cause state universities to start performing better.

That was what former President George Bush thought, too, with No Child Left Behind, and let’s just say, we think we all saw how that baby turned out.

America saw how basing schools’ funding on performance turned out. “Badly” is a kind word to use for the results. It was really a giant witch hunt — what teachers can we blame for schools performing poorly? Whom can we fire?

Setting those standards not only suffocated schools that were already begging for resources, but it also caused schools to forget the main point — that these kids are here to get an education and not to be tested more and more on their performance with a myriad of bubble exams.

Nixon’s new plan could urge colleges and universities to set lower goals for themselves in order to secure funding they desperately need. And in a time when they have already had to raise tuition costs for their students to bring in more funding, they are running out of options on how to afford to run their institutions from their own pockets.

Some education officials, as well as some in Jefferson City, think this will help schools perform better and add to the number of college graduates, as well as decrease the drop-out rate. Missouri has a lower drop-out rate than the U.S. average. It looks like we’re doing all right.

In addition, if MU has more money stripped from its coffers, the faculty pay predicament could get worse. We’re not saying the faculty are grossly underpaid, but three years without a merit raise is a long time, and increasing expectations with the threat of negative reinforcement is unlikely to boost morale.

The UM System Board of Curators has said it’s going to make faculty pay a priority, but we’ve been hearing that for three years. Will faculty pay and benefits continue to be a priority if the state cuts more funding? We are, after all, the only university in the Association of American Universities without domestic partner benefits, and that’s supposed to be a priority as soon as the school finds the funding too.

The governor says he’s serious about reforming education in Missouri, but we’ve already seen this backwoods plan fail in the K-12 public system when we called it “No Child Left Behind.” Do we really think it’s going to work better in the higher education system?

Let’s face it. As much as our professors enjoy teaching at MU, they’re hirable and could easily go elsewhere if they’re unhappy. As students, we want the best professors, and we want MU to be able to recruit and keep them.