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).
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