🔴TX GOV FinalExamReview🔴

CH 13 - Public Policy: People_The Policy-Making Process, Education Policy, Welfare Policy

PolicyMaking - Problem Identification

• Develop an understanding of how we must think about and address a particular problem. 

• Identify a systemic agenda, in which issues are commonly perceived as involving matters within governmental authority.

  • EX) Problem w/poverty

PolicyMaking - Policy Formulation

• Clarify general ideas about specifically defined problems & developing strategies for dealing w/ these problems.

  • Institutional agenda setting

PolicyMaking - Implementation

• Public policy must be put into effect by gov

• Identifying appropriate agency to implement program is crucial at this stage, & budgetary policy plays major role

PolicyMaking - Evaluation

• Policies must be ______ for effectiveness

• Good ______ can allow for a rethinking of the policy and of the strategies employed.

EduPoli - Gilmer-Aiken Laws

• Through the first half of the 20th century, public edu was largely local affair

• Schools were funded by local taxes and decisions were made at the local level

• Many school systems were chronically short of funds as a result

• Est in 1949 & est framework for education policy in TX

EduPoli - Desegregation

• In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state-imposed segregation in schools violated the equal protection clause of 14th Amendment.

• Desegregation was hampered by political opposition.

• De facto segregation remains a problem.

EduPoli - Equal protection clause

• The district court ruled TX school finance system unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution’s _______, but decision was overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973

EduPoli - San Antonio v. Rodriguez (1973)

• Involved the constitutionality of using property taxes to fund public schools.

  • Posed question of equitable funding

  • District court ruled TX school finance system unconstitutional under U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, but choice was overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973

EduPoli - Edgewood ISD v. Kirby (1989)

• Considered whether funding public schools through local property taxes fulfilled the Texas Constitution’s provisions.

  • What constituted an “efficient system of free public schools”?

  • TX Supreme Court held that the funding system was in violation of the state constitution, touching off political firestorm.

  • In 2016, the TX Supreme Court acknowledged that the system was “Byzantine” and “undeniably imperfect.” court held that existing system meets the minimum constitutional provisions for the “general diffusion of knowledge.”

EduPoli - Robinhood Plan

• Through 1990s & into 2000s, legislature responded w/ various funding plans

  • In one, the so-called ________, funds were to be transferred from rich to poor districts

  • General revenue monies are now used to address some inequities of system

  • Funding in public edu is still unresolved to some degree

    • Long-term decline in % of general state revenues allocated to public edu compared to local revenues from property taxes

EduPoli - Educational Excellence & Accountability in TX

• In 1980s, TX debate was part of a larger national debate over edu

  • State legislature est Select Committee on Public Education (SCOPE)

  • In 1983, SCOPE presented 140 reform recommendations

  • Essentially centralized edu policy in state

• 2nd round of debate in 1995 led to new reforms focused on local control & school accountability

  • Gave more discretion to local school districts to achieve state-mandated edu goals

• Reform movement in public edu in TX face issue controversy:

  • Accountability through testing

  • School choice

  • Statewide assessment standards

  • School accountability

• Testing to promote academic excellence is no longer center stage

EduPoli - Vouchers

• ____ increase competition & student/parental choice

  • Criticisms are that _____ will encourage middle- & upper-class students to leave poor students in low-funded schools behind

EduPoli - Charter Schools

• _______ are private companies that have a charter (contract) w/gov to provide edu services

• Criticism: _______ will drain $ from public schools

EduPoli -Increased Funding

• There is a 3rd alternative to current edu policy: Spend more $

  • Supporters of _________, argue that TX schools fail bc they are woefully underfunded

    • Salaries of teachers r too low, & state regulations on curriculum & classroom r too great

  • Spending more to get better teachers is seen as solution to problem of public edu

• While public is generally in favor of increased expenditures going to public edu, support splits along partisan lines

WelfarePoli - New Deal

• Origins of modern welfare policy lie in FDR’s _____

• Social Security Act of 1935 transformed welfare policy in US

• States administered & determined the benefit levels for a series of welfare programs, but in exchange for fed assistance in funding, programs had to meet certain minimum fed guidelines

• Department of Public Welfare was est in TX in 1939 to run the state’s various public assistance programs

WelfarePoli - Medicaid

• TX welfare policy was transformed in the 1960s.

• In 1960s, new fed programs aimed at poverty proliferated

• In 1965, U.S. Congress est _____.

• Johnson’s “War on Poverty” expanded social service programs for poor

WelfarePoli - Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

• In 1972, the federal _____ program was est

• Between 1967 & 1973, participation rates & welfare expenditures in TX skyrocketed

  • EX) # of children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) during this time rose from 80,000 to 325,000

Welfare Poli - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

• In 1996, the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed.

  • Several programs were combined into __________.

WelfarePoli - Affordable Care Act (ACA): Individual Mandate, pre-existing conditions, Medicaid expansion

• In 2010, Congress passed the _________, often known as Obamacare, and transformed the debate over health care policy.

• The _____ required individuals to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, and it expanded Medicaid

  • individual mandate penalty was eliminated in 2019

  • act also increased coverage for preexisting conditions and expanded medical insurance

  • complicated U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2012 rejected the insurance mandate but upheld the tax penalty, & held that states could not be forced to expand Medicaid

Layer cake federalism

Dual federalism

Laws that are made to collect a tax or fund a program

Appropriations

A metaphor for federalism where the layers of a cake signify the separate spheres in which the federal and state governments operate and have power.

Layer cake federalism

Final step of the policy process in which the efficacy of a policy is determined:

Policy evaluation

Regulates schools, issues licenses, and in charge of elections, establish local governments, regulates in-state trade, in charge of the police

State level

Federal grants that can be used only for specific purposes by state and local governments

Categorical grants

Government program that provides medical and health-related services for low-income parents, children, and the disabled.

Medicaid

States prefer these

Block grants

During the policymaking process, when a plan of action is executed by an agency or agencies, what important step has taken place?

Policy implementation

A form of federal aid given directly to the states, which a state or local education agency may spend as it wishes with few limitations.

Block grants

Requirements that direct states or local governments to comply with federal rules under threat of penalties

Mandates

Marble cake federalism

Cooperative federalism

State-appropriated funds to cover the costs of educating students with special needs.

Categorical aid

A system of governance where federal and state governments share power and collaborate on certain issues. An interlocking federal system in which the national government might work with state government on certain programs.

Cooperative federalism

Policies made to deal with issues that the people think are important, or that apply to the people

Public policy

Puts policy into effect by enforcement through the appropriate government agency:

Policy implementation

The states and the national government must work together to solve complex common problems

Cooperative federalism

A doctrine that emphasizes a distinction between federal and state spheres of government authority

Dual federalism

_______________________ is the analysis of policy and its impact upon the problem; judging the effectiveness of the policy and making adjustments if necessary.

Policy evaluation

The 10th Amendment creates a sphere of power for the states that the federal govenrment should not intrude upon

Dual federalism

A movement promoted by the Republican Party that favored devolution, or the transfer of powers from the national government to the states.

New federalism

Federal law is supreme over state law

Supremacy clause

Government program that provides benefits based on need.

Means Based program

Doctrine holding that the national government is supreme in its sphere, the states are supreme in theirs, and the two spheres should be kept separate

Dual federalism

Type of government where states and a central government share power.

Federal

Medicaid provides public health assistance for those that are:

Low-income

A movement promoted by the Republican Party that favored devolution, or the transfer of powers from the national government to the states.

New federalism

Type of government where states and a central government share power.

Federal

Money given to the states by the national Government to address an issue

Grants-in-aid

Highest educational agency in a state, regulating the state's system of education.

State board of education

Doctrine holding that the national government is supreme in its sphere, the states are supreme in theirs, and the two spheres should be kept separate

dual federalism

A metaphor for federalism where the layers of a cake signify the separate spheres in which the federal and state governments operate and have power.

layer cake federalism

During the policymaking process, when a plan of action is executed by an agency or agencies, what important step has taken place?

policy implementation

Final step of the policy process in which the efficacy of a policy is determined:

Policy evaluation

The 10th Amendment creates a sphere of power for the states that the federal govenrment should not intrude upon

dual federalism

a form of federal aid given directly to the states, which a state or local education agency may spend as it wishes with few limitations.

Block grants

Laws that are made to collect a tax or fund a program

Appropriations

Federal grants that can be used only for specific purposes by state and local govenrments

Categorical grants

Requirements that direct states or local governments to comply with federal rules under threat of penalties

Mandates

What has been the major goal of the government’s education policy?

Ensure equal access to education

independent, innovative, outcome-based, public schools, started by a group of teachers, parents, or others who obtain a charter from a local school district, a state, or the federal government.

Charter schools

Government program that provides benefits based on need.

Means Based program

state-appropriated funds to cover the costs of educating students with special needs.

Categorical aid

Marble cake federalism

cooperative federalism

Social welfare in the United States began with:

New Deal

funds allocated to parents that they might use to purchase education for their children from public or private schools in the area.

Voucher system

A system in which power is divided between the national and state governments

Federalism

various proposals that would allow parents to choose the schools their children attend.

school choice

What is federalism?