Chapter 12 Public Policy Flashcards
What is public policy?
the means by which the government addresses the needs of its citizens.
Public policy entails protecting those
who cannot protect themselves
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) runs
Child Protective Services (CPS).
Despite its importance, DFPS has been severely understaffed, resulting in
“an unreasonable risk of harm [to children] caused by the state.”
What is CPS’s job?
to investigate cases of child neglect or abuse and, when necessary, remove a child from parents’ custody and place the child in a relative’s home or in a foster home
In 2011, a New York–based advocacy group brought
a class action suit on behalf of all children in long-term care in Texas
In a 260-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Janis Jack of Corpus Christie found that
“excessive caseloads and overburdened caseworkers cause an unreasonable risk of harm” to foster children.
Public policy remains mostly
the duty and the responsibility of the state
What can the national government contribute?
funds and regulate aspects of public-policy areas.
It has shifted overtime.
The balance of power between state and federal government
Public policy refers to the outputs of
governmental institutions
Public policies can be found in laws passed by
legislative bodies, rules, regulations, and orders from public agencies.
What is problem identification?
Identifying a systemic agenda, in which issues are commonly perceived as involving matters within governmental authority
What is an example of problem identification?
The problem of poverty
What is policy formulation?
Clarifying general ideas about specifically defined problems and developing strategies for dealing with these problems
What is an example of policy formulation?
Institutional agenda setting
What is a systemic agenda (Roger Cobb and Charles Elder):
): agenda in which all issues are “commonly perceived by members of the political community as meriting public attention and as involving matters within the legitimate jurisdiction of existing governmental authority”
If we view the problem of poverty as one of limited income, we might
Increase welfare payments
If we view poverty as behavior that causes people to be poor, such as unwillingness to work,
we might focus on encouraging work and education
What plays a major role in defining public policy making?
Our ideology—our ideas, concepts, and visions about how society works
What does policy formulation involve?
detailed procedures in passing legislation and making administrative rules and regulations.
When a process of an institutional agenda setting takes place,
interest group access allows them to help set the agenda and what problems will be discussed, how they will be understood, and what measures should be taken.
When public policy must be put into effect by government.
Implementation
Identifying the appropriate agency to implement a program is crucial at this stage, and budgetary policy plays a major role.
Implementation
When policies must be evaluated for effectiveness.
Evaluation
Good evaluation can allow for a rethinking of the policy and of the strategies employed.
Evaluation
Well-formulated public policy can be dashed by
poorly executed or poorly funded implementation
Good evaluation of a public policy assesses
the stated goals against the actual outcomes of the policy as implemented
Some political scientists suggest another stage in the policy-making process:
legitimation, in which a particular policy initiative is established and recognized as legal and constitutional. This may be better understood as something that takes place throughout the entire policy-making process
What is rationality?
clearly identified goals and the aim of achieving them in an optimal or efficient manner
How does rationality help efficiency?
maximizing the outputs of government with minimum resources
What factors work against rationality?
governments that tend to work incrementally, and policy makers’ rationality may be a “ bounded rationality”. (they seek to “satisfice”
What is “bounded rationality”?
the idea in policy making that decision makers may seek satisfactory solutions to problems that are not necessarily optimal or efficient
What problems of education does Texas face?
There is no single dominating problem in education.
Texas ranks 45th on public expenditures per enrolled student.
The population of students is increasingly minority and disadvantaged, and Texas has high dropout rates.
What did the Gilmer-Aikin Laws establish, in Texas?
A framework for educational policy
In Texas, how many students enrolled in public schools, in 2018 and came second to California?
5.5 million
How many teachers do Texas school districts employ?
342,000
education reform legislation passed in 1949 that supplemented local funding of education with public monies, raised teachers’ salaries, mandated a minimum length for the school year, and provided for more state supervision of public education
Gilmer Aikin Laws
The State Board of Education, now the Texas Education Agency (TEA), became
the policy-making body for public education in the state, selecting budgets, establishing regulations for school accreditation, purchasing textbooks, and investing in the Permanent School Fund.
How much money in state General Revenue monies went to public education?
$40.3 billion
How many school districts are there in Texas?
over 1,023 with 8,096 schools
Expenditure per pupil is
below the national average
What is the largest school district in Texas?
Houston Independent School District
Some education issues in Texas include
expenditure per pupil, the high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, and the dropout rate.
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state-imposed segregation in schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
It was hampered by political opposition.
Desegregation
What is de facto?
in fact, or in effect, whether by right or not
What is de jure?
the legal separation of groups based on the law.
What have other court cases effected in Texas in the past 30 years?
Education policy and politics
This involved the constitutionality of using property taxes to fund public schools.
San Antonio v. Rodríguez
The district court ruled Texas’s school finance system unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, but the decision was overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.
It was a question of equitable funding
San Antonio v. Rodríguez
What did lawyers argue about in San Antonio v. Rodriguez
the system of financing public schools was unfair because the value of property subject to taxation was far different from one school district to the next, enabling the Edgewood school district to raise $37 per pupil, while the neighboring district of Alamo Heights raised $413 per pupil.
the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing citizens the “equal protection of the laws”; this clause has been the basis for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and other groups.
The Equal Protection Clause
considered whether funding public schools through local property taxes fulfilled the Texas Constitution’s provisions.
Edgewood ISD v. Kirby (1989)
It constituted an “efficient system of free public schools” and the Texas Supreme court held that the funding system was in violation of the state constitution, touching off a political firestorm.
Edgewood ISD v. Kirby (1989)
How was Edgewood different than Rodriguez?
Edgewood focused on the state’s own constitution rather than the U.S. Constitution
“A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of free public schools.”
Article 7, Section 1
The plaintiffs argued that the state’s reliance on local property taxes discriminated against
poor children by denying them equal opportunities in education.
What is the role of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)?
to protect and defend the rights of all Latinos living in the United States and the constitutional rights of all Americans.
The Robin Hood Plan is an attempt to equalize funding among
public schools
Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, the legislature responded with various funding plans such as
The Robin Hood plan which had funds transferred from the rich to the poor districts. General revenue monies are now used to address some of the inequities of the system.
Funding in public education is still
unresolved to some degree
In 2017, legislators cut _____ million from general revenue funding of public education and refused to spend an additional _____ to prevent the lowering of per student funding
$600 million ; $4 billion
In 2006, a compromise was crafted that finally put post–Robin Hood constitutional concerns about public financing to rest. It cut property taxes by ____third and replaced lost revenues with money raised statewide by an expanded business tax and a new ____ per-pack tax on cigarettes.
1/3 ; $1
In 2008, the state covered _____ of the cost of public education. By 2019, state support had dropped to ____.
48.5 percent ; 38 percent.
In the 1980s, the Texas debate was actually part of
a larger national debate over education.
Who established the Select Committee on Public Education (SCOPE)?
The legislature
In 1984, SCOPE presented ___ recommendations for reform.
140
A second round of debate in 1995 led to
new reforms focused on local control and on school accountability.
Among the most controversial of the SCOPE recommendations was
“No Pass, No Play”
In “No Pass, No Play”,
students who failed to earn a grade of 70 or more would be unable to participate in any extracurricular activities.
What are “Perot reforms”?
Other proposals involved new standards for attendance and performance; annual school performance reports and tighter accreditation standards—and related penalties; a longer school year; and a professional career ladder for teachers, tying raises to performance
The reforms following debate in the 1995 legislative session are known as
the Bush reforms for Governor George W. Bush
Local control was increased by
limiting the power of the TEA
What are the controversial issues the reform movement in public education, in Texas, continues to face?
Accountability through testing
School choice
Statewide assessment standards
School accountability
Failure rates following the flurry of reform continuing through the 2000s stayed stubbornly high, and support among
business and political elites for testing as a reform method has collapsed.
What schools are promoting competition among other schools?
Charter schools
What remains low with teachers among minority students?
Salaries, state spending, test scores
What were the SAT scores in Texas compared to the national average?
Texas: 513 in reading, 507 in math / National Average: 533 in reading, 527 in math.
Despite implementation of new assessments, overall student performance
stayed flat or fell on various tests.
More disturbingly, there appeared to be a growing “achievement gap” as
minorities and at-risk students failed at higher rates than whites in consecutive iterations of the tests.
The dropout rate in grades _ through _ has been declining, but it has remained high among minorities.
7 ; 12
With more rigorous assessments such as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), overall student performance has
stayed flat or fallen, and a growing “achievement gap” has appeared, whereby minority and at-risk students are failing at higher rates than white students.
Unlike charters, vouchers increased in
competition and student/parental choice
