PUBPOL 513: Analysis Evans School of & Governance Spring Quarter 2017

Time: Thursdays, 1:30 PM to 4:20 PM Instructor: Grant Blume, PhD Location: Parrington 108 Office: Parrington 403 Office Hours: Wednesdays, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Email: [email protected] and by appointment (Please note that I will hold office hours and appointments in Professor Rachel Fyall’s office, PAR 228; please use Canvas to sign up for an T.A.: Elena Swartz office hours timeslot.) Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Mon, 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM Thurs, 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM Location: TBD

Course website: https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1142063 Class email list: [email protected]

Course Description and Objectives

This course in the MPA core curriculum is designed to provide you with a working knowledge of applied policy analysis methods for public decision making. This course is intended to prepare you to 1) be fluent in the basic application of policy analysis tools and 2) to be informed and critical consumers of policy analysis.

Broadly, policy analysis can be grouped into two categories: ex ante analysis, used to analyze policy problems generally and provide recommendations prior to implementation, and ex post analysis, used to evaluate the effectiveness of after implementation. This course focuses on ex ante analysis and complements topics covered in other courses on ex post analysis, such as quantitative and qualitative program .

PUBPOL 513 has three primary learning objectives:

 Understand the purpose and value of policy analysis, for both stakeholders and policymakers;  Cultivate a policy analysis toolkit while simultaneously critiquing the conventional assumptions that underlie how public policy is analyzed in the United States;  Complete a thorough, professional policy analysis project.

Prerequisites

The formal prerequisite for this course is PUBPOL 516, Economics for Policy Analysis and Management. That said, this course is designed with an assumption that you have a basic background in descriptive and inferential statistics and research methods more generally. I will

1 also assume that you have the capacity to read and interpret basic descriptive and inferential statistics (including reading/interpreting professional and academic studies on public policy) as well as the ability to produce basic descriptive statistics in a standard computer program (e.g., SPSS, Stata, or R).

Texts and Case Studies

This course has no required texts. Cases, however, must be purchased from Harvard Publishing. Please go to http://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/cases and enter the case title to proceed with the purchase. All other assigned readings are available on the course Canvas site.

Office Hours

I am happy to hold weekly office hours on Wednesdays from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM or meet with you by appointment. Please note that I will hold office hours and appointments in Professor Rachel Fyall’s office, which is located in Parrington Hall (PAR 228). If you would like to meet with me during regular office hours, please schedule a timeslot for yourself (or your group) using the scheduling tool that is part of Canvas.

At the same time, I acknowledge that other classes, work schedules, childcare constraints, etc., can make it difficult to get to Parrington Hall within a set two-hour window. For this reason I am happy to talk on the phone with you if that is more convenient. Or, if you need to coordinate a conversation with me and your group members, I am happy to meet with you virtually using Google Meetup, Skype, or similar technology. If you have a topic you would like to bounce around or you seek a detailed amount of feedback about something related to class, my only request is that you consider a medium other than email since writing out long emails (and replies) is often less efficient than a conversation.

I also encourage you to meet with Elena, the course TA, if you need assistance. Elena and I will work closely together throughout the quarter; her explanations and perspective will likely provide valuable insight for you as you navigate the course material.

Grades

Final grades will be calculated as follows. Each course element will be weighted out of a total of 100 points.

Class participation, discussion questions, etc. 35% Case study analysis 15% Memo #1, Problem Definition 10% Memo #2, Policy Objectives, Criteria and Options 10% Final Project (in-class presentation (5%) and report (25%)) 30%

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Course Policies and Expectations

Academic Integrity

As a student in this course, you acknowledge that you are a member of a learning community in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance that is committed to the highest academic standards. As a member of this community, you agree to uphold the fundamental standards of honesty, respect, and integrity, and you accept the responsibility to encourage others to adhere to these standards. If you are uncertain about whether a particular action constitutes academic misconduct, please ask Elena or me for guidance before an assignment is due, or review the Evans School Student Handbook regarding what constitutes academic misconduct. In short, you must write your own discussion questions and case analysis, make unique contributions to your group project, and not copy or paraphrase what other students have written. Plagiarized memos and group projects will receive a grade of 0.0 and will be reported to Evans School administrators. I encourage you to work together in discussing the readings, but you must submit your own work.

Attendance

Class preparation and participation are very important for success in this course – in fact, participation constitutes more than one-third of your grade. Please arrive on time to class and attend each class in its entirety. An absence is excused if you email me in advance of the class meeting and only in the case of illness, documented emergencies, and unavoidable conflict due to official university obligations. If you anticipate missing more than two classes I encourage you to drop this class and find another section of PUBPOL 513 that is more conducive to your schedule. Job interviews and job-related conflicts are not considered excused absences. Absences reported after missing class are considered unexcused unless valid documentation is provided. I expect students who are unable to attend class to obtain class materials and notes from classmates. Missing class is not an excuse for turning in late assignments.

Regardless of why you missed class, being absent from class means you must write a modest memo (length of 500 - 750 words) summarizing the week’s readings. In this memo, please summarize the week’s readings and connect the underlying themes of the readings to the broader course themes. Please submit this memo on the course Canvas site. Your memo is due by 5 PM on the Friday after the day of class you missed/are missing (e.g. if you were to miss class on Thursday, April 27, your memo would be due by 5:00 PM on Friday, April 28, via Canvas).

Attendance at discussion sections is optional but it is in your best interest to attend, both for your learning and for your grade in the class. If you attend at least six of the eight discussion sections offered this quarter, you will receive an extra credit “bump” at the end of the quarter equal to a 1% increase in your overall course grade. More information about the topics covered in discussion sections will be provided in class each week.

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Evans School Community Conversation Norms

As you participate in class, please keep in mind these Evans School norms. As a professional school, we have a responsibility to communicate with each other – inside and outside of the classroom – in a manner consistent with conduct in today’s increasingly diverse places of work. We hold ourselves individually and collectively responsible for our communication by:

 Listening carefully and respectfully;  Sharing and teaching each other generously;  Clarifying the intent and impact of our comments;  Giving and receiving feedback in a relationship-building manner; and  Working together to expand our knowledge by using high standards for evidence and analysis.

Participation: In class

As mentioned above, class preparation and participation are very important for success in this course. I expect you to attend class, arrive on time, complete assigned readings, and to contribute to class activities through active participation and involvement. Everyone benefits when there is active communication in class. Class discussions are not an empty exercise to gain points but an effort to teach each other how to engage in respectful and high level discussions. Come to class with enthusiasm, ready to engage your classmates, the material, and me! As you’ll see in this section of the syllabus, I’ve designed participation credit for this course in a way that rewards multiple types of participation, not just speaking up in class.

You will have regular opportunities to contribute to the class discussion and in small-group activities; small group activities are designed specifically to make sure everyone has their voice heard. In class, I may occasionally call on students to answer questions I pose. Many questions are posed directly to the class, and each of you is welcome to respond. You may demonstrate your preparation for class by taking notes on the assigned readings so you are prepared with questions and responses to questions throughout the lecture. You may provide examples of the policy analysis material we’ve used in class, or critique the way they’ve been used in policy reports. And you may discuss how the techniques might be applied in your current, former, or future careers. All this said, while I encourage and welcome your participation, I also ask that you be conscious of your in-class contributions and avoid dominating any given discussion in which your classmates may be engaged. I understand that not every student will be able to participate in every class.

Participation: Weekly discussion questions

To facilitate discussion in class and in small groups when appropriate, you will pose on at least five occasions during the quarter at least two discussion questions to the class about the week’s assigned reading material. Please make your questions about the week’s readings and not the case study which may also be assigned that week. To receive participation credit for your questions, you will need to post the questions pertaining to that week’s material by 10:00 PM on Wednesday (i.e. the night before class) to the course’s online discussion board accessed through Canvas. The point of asking you to generate questions like this is threefold:

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1. Thinking about the questions that arise for you as you read something stimulates your ability to think critically about the material; 2. Your questions, and our use of such questions in class, introduces valuable intellectual and cultural diversity to our in-class discussions compared to if I was only asking the questions; 3. As an instructor, your questions provide me valuable insight into how you’re digesting the week’s readings and core concepts.

What makes for good discussion questions? There is no one answer, but here are some things to keep in mind:

 The questions you pose about the week’s readings need not be overly complicated. At the same time, I need you to go beyond a question that could be answered with a “yes/no” e.g. “Do you agree with Stone’s point about…?” does not provide sufficient fodder to stimulate discussion. Hence, ask yourself when you post a question: Could a small group of my classmates and I talk about this question for 5-10 minutes?

 Questions that draw from everyone’s ideas, not their professional background or experiences or research interests, make for good discussion questions. For example, instead of asking, “What is a time when you could have used a logic model in your past or present job to…” you could ask, “In what public/nonprofit contexts could logic models…” Hence, ask yourself when you post a question: Could a small group of my classmates and I discuss this question regardless of our professional experiences, background, and/or research project topics?

 You are welcome to critique a reading by asking a question that is critical of an author’s assumptions, approaches, or conclusions. In doing this, however, I ask that you make a case for such a critique that incorporates material from this course or other MPA courses you’ve taken. In other words, you must substantiate your claims in these discussion questions. Instead of question starting out as “I had a problem with how Smith and Jones (2015) presented the stakeholders in this case…” you might instead write something like “The way that Smith and Jones present stakeholders seems inadequate when you consider how Brinkeroff and Crosby (2002) think about stakeholders. By this I mean…”

 Discussion questions that connect to 1) past weeks’ readings and/or 2) to reoccurring themes in this course are a great way to demonstrate you are conceptualizing the core concepts of program evaluation.

 For each week that you submit discussion questions, please post questions with topics/ideas that have not yet been posted for that week. In other words, if you think of a terrific, thought-provoking question for Week 4’s materials, but your classmate thinks of the same question and posts it before you, you need to come up with a new question. The implication of this point is twofold: 1) read the previously-posted discussion questions for a given week before you post your own, and 2) there are clear advantages to posting your discussion questions early!

On two occasions during the quarter (Week 4 and Week 5) I will ask for questions from everyone in the class. These two occasions count toward your five submissions, which means you will

5 need to post questions on at least three more occasions beyond when you post questions on Week 4 and Week 5. And, if you’ve already posted questions five times but later in the quarter you think of a provocative question while doing one of the readings, by all means post your question for everyone to see!

Your submission of discussion questions, as part of your participation grade, will be assessed on a scale of 1 to 3: for a given week that you submit questions, you will receive a “1” for questions that minimally analyze the readings’ core concepts; a “2” for questions that moderately analyze the readings’ core concepts; or a “3” for questions for questions that demonstrate substantial analysis of the readings’ core concepts and/or connect the week’s readings to broader themes within the domain of program evaluation.

Assignments

Your assignments for this class fall in two categories: individual work and group work. Your individual work will consist of one case study analysis. At a point in the quarter of your choosing (you’ll have three options), you will analyze one case with implications for policy analysis. This case study assignment is intended to stimulate your thinking about a particular dimension of policy analysis. For these case study analyses I expect your writing to adhere to the conventional memo writing standards you have refined as an MPA student (i.e. clear prose, well developed arguments, professional-looking format, etc.). We will spend a portion of class discussing each case study, so even if you do not write on the day’s particular case you are still expected to read the case and come to class prepared for discussion. Your case study analysis will be due, submitted electronically to the Canvas course webpage, prior to the beginning of class. Since we will discuss the cases in class, no late case study analyses will be accepted under any circumstances. Details/instructions about each case study analysis will be available under separate cover on the course website at least two weeks prior to when the case study analysis is due. You are strongly encouraged to read the week’s assigned materials prior to reading and analyzing the case.

The second category of assignments is group work. Group work for this course involves a comprehensive policy analysis project, comprising Memo #1 (a memo outlining the definition of the policy problem as your group sees it), Memo #2 (a memo covering the policy objectives, criteria, and options your group will consider, in addition to a revised problem definition if warranted), and the final project. You will receive details about each of these assignments under separate cover.

Working in Teams

By this point in your MPA experience you are likely well acquainted with group work and team projects. For this course, note that 50% of your grade is tied to team deliverables.

I invite you to divide up work however you see fit over the course of the quarter. For consistency’s sake, however, please delegate one team member as the lead who will be responsible for submitting all your team assignments on Canvas.

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You are welcome to approach Elena or me at any point in the quarter if you’re struggling with a teammate, but I also encourage you to remedy the situation on your own to the best of your ability. Note that at the end of the quarter, I will ask you to assess your contribution to the team project and the contribution of your teammates. A blaring lack of contribution may affect a team member’s final project grade negatively.

Miscellanea

Talking in Class

Talking to classmates is distracting to me and your classmates. If your understanding of the English language is developing and you sometimes rely on others to translate for you, please consider sitting toward the back of the room to minimize the distraction.

Electronic Devices

Please turn off your cell phones before entering class. If you need to use your phone to send a text, check a bus schedule, or for any other reason during class, I ask that you excuse yourself from the classroom and use your phone in the hallway. Using your laptop or tablet during class to take notes or reference materials is fine, but please refrain from using these devices to check email, scan websites, etc. Using your devices for these purposes is an inappropriate use of class time and is distracting to me, you, and your fellow classmates. NOTE: When we have a guest speaker, I ask that you put your laptop away and give your undivided attention to whoever is speaking. If you wish to take notes, please do so by hand.

Email

You are welcome to email Elena or me whenever you have a question or need clarification about something related to class. Please begin the subject line with "PUBPOL 513" so we can clearly see the email among our other correspondence. Please also allow sufficient time (12-24 hours) for a response. Elena and I will do our best to reply as soon as possible but oftentimes we may be traveling, in day-long meetings, or engaged in other activities that take us away from email. If you are emailing about a group project, please follow the general convention of also copying in your teammates so as to avoid redundant correspondence. In certain cases, you may pose a good question from which everyone in the class may benefit hearing the answer; in those circumstances I may copy in the class email list when I reply. Unless there is a specific reason why you do not feel comfortable doing so, please always copy in Elena on any email correspondence you send me.

Canvas and Class Email List

Most of the course’s materials are administered online via Canvas. Correspondence to the entire class will be made via the class email list. It is your responsibility to check your UW email account or automatically forward your UW emails to whatever email account you choose. Failure to log in to Canvas or regularly check email is not an excuse for being unaware of course material or developments.

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Accommodations

Your experience in this class is important to me. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved circumstances to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or [email protected] or disability.uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions. Reasonable accommodations can be established through an interactive process between you, me, and DRS.

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PUBPOL 513: Policy Analysis

Course Outline, Spring Quarter 2017

Week Date, Topic of Class Readings and Assignments

Required Readings:

th Wheelen, C. (2011). Introduction to Public Policy. New York: W. W. March 30 Norton & Company. Chapter 1: Public Decision Making.

Course logistics, team Prepare for class: 1 formation, age-old Read the three documents (Seattle Times article, plus Sally Clark and Tim question: What is Burgess’s blog posts) on the course website related to the recent City Council policy analysis? meeting and the decision of the council to place limits on rideshares. We’ll have an in-class discussion on this topic and how it relates to policy analysis.

Required Readings:

th Bardach, E. & Patashnik (2015). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold April 6 path to more effective problem solving (4th edition). Los Angeles: Sage Publishing. Part I – The Eightfold Path. Dunn, W. (2008). Public policy analysis: An introduction. Upper Saddle River, Identifying and N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. Chapter 3: Structuring policy problems. 2 diagnosing policy Gooden, S. (2015). Chapter 2: The saturation of racial inequities in the United problems along with States. Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area of Government (pp. 21-44). their symptoms, New York: M.E. Sharpe. stakeholders, and decision makers Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, April 5th:  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings if you so choose.

Required Readings:

Bardach, E. & Patashnik (2015). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold path to more effective problem solving (4th edition). Los Angeles: Sage Publishing. Part II – Assembling evidence. April 13th Weimer, D. & Vining, A. (2011). Policy analysis (5th edition). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. Chapter 14: Gathering information for policy

analysis.

Head, B. & Alford, J. (2015). Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and Documenting policy 3 management. Administration & Society, 47(6), 711-739. problems; defining the Case Study: The challenge of adapting to climate change: King County brings local problem and action to a global threat. collecting evidence

Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, April 12th:  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings if you so choose. Turned in electronically no later than 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 13th:  Case write-up (if you chose this particular case for your analysis)

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Required Readings: st April 20 Salamon, L. (2001). The New Governance and the Tools of Public Action. In Salamon (Ed.). The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance, pp. 1-47. New York: Oxford University Press. Conceptualizing Bemelmans-Videc, M. L., Rist, R. C., & Vedung, E. O. (Eds.). (2011). Carrots, policy tools, sticks, and sermons: Policy instruments and their evaluation. New Brunswick, 4 designing policy NJ: Transaction Publishers. [Chapter 5, skim briefly Chapters 2, 3 and 4.] options/alternatives, and considering Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, April 20th: appropriate criteria  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings. Note that everyone needs to post questions for this week. Turned in electronically no later than 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 20th:  Project Memo #1: Problem Definition

Required Readings:

Stone, D. (2011). Policy paradox: The art of political decision making. New York: April 27th W. W. Norton & Company. Chapters 1: The Market and the Polis, Chapter 7: Symbols, and Chapter 8: Numbers. Case Study: Michelle Rhee and the Washington DC Public Schools. 5 The politics of th policy analysis Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, April 26 :  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings. Note that everyone needs to post questions for this week.

Turned in electronically no later than 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 27th:  Case write-up (if you chose this particular case for your analysis)

Required Readings:

May 4th Manski, C. (2013). Public policy in an uncertain world: Analysis and decisions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chapter 1: Policy Analysis with

Incredible Certitude. Decision making Hammond, J., Keeney, R., & Raiffa, H. (2002). Smart choices: A practical guide under uncertainty to making better life decisions. New York: Random House. Chapter 7: Uncertainty. 6 Guest Speakers: Washington State Institute for Public Policy. (2016). Interventions to promote Dani Fumia and postsecondary attainment. Olympia: Author. [Read report; skim appendix.] Michael Hirsch from the Washington State Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, May 3rd: Institute of Public  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s Policy (WSIPP) readings if you so choose.

Turned in electronically no later than 1:30 PM on Monday, May 4th:  Project Memo #2: Policy Objectives, Criteria and Options

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Required Readings:

Wheelen, C. (2011). Introduction to Public Policy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Chapter 12: Cost-Benefit Analysis. th May 11 Winter, H. (2013). Trade-Offs: An introduction to economic thinking and social issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Preface to the First Edition, Chapter 1: Approaching Social Issues, and Chapter 5: Eat, Drink, Smoke, and 7 Tradeoffs: Be Unhappy. Case Study: Parking in San Francisco. Analyzing costs and benefits Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, May 10th:  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings if you so choose.

Turned in electronically no later than 1:30 PM on Thursday, May 11th  Case write-up (if you chose this particular case for your analysis)

Required Readings:

Le Grand, J. (1990). Equity vs. efficiency: The elusive tradeoff. Ethics, 100(3).554-568. Race and Initiative. Racial equity in Seattle (2014) and Racial equity th May 18 toolkit to assess policies, initiatives, and budget issues (2012). City of Seattle. Mintrom, M. (2012). Contemporary policy analysis. New York: Oxford University 8 Tradeoffs: Press. Chapter 15: Race Analysis. Analyzing equity Winter, H. (2013). Trade-Offs: An introduction to economic thinking and social issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 8: There are No Solutions.

Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, May 17th:  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings if you so choose.

Required Readings:

Thaler, R., Sunstein, C., & Balz, J. (2013). Choice architecture. In E. Sharif (Ed.), The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (pp. 428-439). Princeton, th May 25 NJ: Princeton University Press. Behavioural Insights Team. (2016). Update report. London: Author. [Please read Behavioral policy both forewords, the summary, the sections on Health and 9 tools: From Wellbeing, Education and Skills, Growth, Employment and Productivity, and neoclassical to two additional sections of your choice.] the nudge Bertrand, M., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2004). A behavioral economics view of . The American Economics Review, 94(2), 419-423.

Turned in electronically no later than 10:00 PM on Wednesday, May 24th:  Post discussion questions to the course discussion board about the week’s readings if you so choose.

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10 June 1nd Class presentations

No Class

11 Finals Week Turned in electronically no later than 5:00 PM on Wednesday, June 7th:  Final policy analysis project

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