Assignment:
Overview Public policy establishes the framework for public programs and services.
Policies are formulated in a complex environment with competing interests. These public policies generate programs and services that are intended to implement the policy and meet the public good; the outcomes from the programs and services should demonstrate public value. In this course, you assess the perspectives, relevance, and usefulness of public policies in a dynamic political setting. For your final project, you will prepare a program review report, which is a specific type of report designed to critically and objectively examine a program from inception to implementation. The report will analyze the political framework of the policy that precipitated the program; describe the stakeholders, including the advocates and critics of the policy; and assess the program effectiveness. Your report should be comprehensive enough that it could be a deliverable to a public agency. In coordination with your instructor, select a public policy and corresponding program of interest to you. The policy you select should be robust enough that you can find resources to inform the context in which the policy was conceived through to its actual implementation. The program can be at the federal, state, or local level (and it is not unusual for a state policy to have influences at both the federal and the local level). The focus of your program review report will be where you see the implementation of the program having the most impact. The project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Three, Five, and Seven. The final project will be submitted in Module Nine. In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes: • Analyze complex democratic processes for discerning how policies are made at the federal, state, or local levels • Contrast how critics and advocates affect policy outcomes in the public sector for informing public program design • Determine appropriate accountability strategies for public programs through assessing governmental monitoring and funding options • Assess the extent to which public program benefits match intended outcomes • Recommend measurable process improvements for public programs through evaluation of program effectiveness Prompt Your program review report should answer the following prompt: Select a public policy and corresponding program. In your report, discuss the formation of the policy and program, including factors that affect the program's accountability and outcomes. Conclude your report by evaluating the effectiveness of the program and recommending process improvements. Your report should be comprehensive enough that it could be a deliverable to a public agency affected by the program. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed: I. Policy Formation: In this section, you will analyze the significance of your selected public policy and provide the contextual background for the program that operationalizes the policy. Specifically, you should: A. Introduction: Provide a comprehensive description of your selected policy and the issue or problem that precipitated the formation of the policy and associated program. Consider questions such as these in your description: Who or what is the policy and program designed to benefit? In what ways will society benefit from the policy and program? What is the evidence of the scope of the issue that led to the creation of the policy and program? In what ways does the evidence support the creation of policy? B. Democratic Processes: Analyze the democratic processes that were used to inform the creation of your selected policy. For example, how was the policy influenced at the federal, state, or local level? What law(s) regulate the policy or program? C. Stakeholders: Who were the stakeholders involved in the democratic processes that led to the creation of your policy? How did they affect the creation of your policy? II. Program Factors: In this section, you will assess some of the factors that contributed to the design of the program. In particular, you should: A. Stakeholders: Describe the program's stakeholders. Consider questions such as these in your response: Who will be responsible for the successful implementation of the program? What are the influences from the media, interest groups, or lobbyists? What is their vested interest in the outcome of the program? B. Advocates: Who are the champions for the program? Why are they advocating for its design and implementation? C. Critics: Who are the critics of the program? Why does this program pose a threat to them? D. Impact: Contrast the effect of the critics and the advocates on the design of the program. In other words, how did the critics and advocates of the program affect its design? III. Program Accountability: In this section, you will appraise the program's metrics for accountability, including funding. Specifically, you should: A. Monitoring: Assess how the program effectiveness is monitored. For example, compliance, auditing, or accounting strategies could be used to establish factual claims about the program's performance. B. Funding: Assess the funding contribution(s) from federal, state, or local governments. Consider questions such as these in your response: What type of funding is used? Is the funding distribution equitable? Does the program receive sufficient and appropriate funding? C. Strategies: Determine appropriate accountability strategies for the program based on your assessment of how the program is monitored and funded. If there are gaps in funding or accountability, how can they be addressed? IV. Program Outcomes: In this section, you will examine what actually happened once the program was implemented. In particular, you should: A. Intended Outcome(s): Assess the program to determine its intended outcome(s) and benefits. In other words, how was the program intended to add value to public services? B. Actual Outcome(s): Assess the program to determine the actual program outcome(s) and outputs. In other words, how did the program actually add value to public services? C. Match: Based on your assessment of the intended and actual outcomes, how closely do the program results match its intended benefits? Were there any unintended consequences of the program? V. Recommendations: In this section, you will develop feasible and politically tenable recommendations for process improvements. Specifically, you should: A. Evaluation: Evaluate the effectiveness of the program. In your response, you should consider the program outcomes that you previously described. Is the program achieving what it was intended to? B. Process Improvements: Based on your evaluation of the effectiveness of the program, what feasible and politically tenable process improvements would you recommend? Why? C. Funding Strategies: What strategies can you suggest for funding these process improvement recommendations (particularly if you recommend a course of action that is beyond the funding scope of the current program)? Explain your funding strategies suggestions. D. Measurement: How will your process improvement recommendations be measured and monitored? In other words, how will you assess the effectiveness of the recommendations?