BSM
PARTICIPATE& CONTRIBUTE
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The second core competency set forth by NASPAA is the ability to participate in and contribute to the public policy process. This involves: the ability to analyze policy outcomes and how they affect communities; the ability to apply budget techniques, such as cost-benefit analysis, to evaluate the feasibility of projects in these times of increasingly constrained resources; the willingness to involve stakeholders, especially the general public, in the policy-making process; the skill and willingness to stimulate and encourage cooperation among organizations, in government, the non-profit and business sectors, and civil society; and an understanding of the policy process sufficient to bring policy proposals to fruition. To illustrate this competency, I've chosen the following coursework:
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When adopting and implementing policy, public servants often acknowledge the characteristics of their state and the people they serve. However, it is always imperative that they not only need to understand their state, but also the outcome that other states may have received when implementing similar policies. During my time in the Masters of Public Administration program, I completed a comparative state politics course. This class focused on the understandings of how the same policies in each state can be so diverse. The culminating project for this class was a state policy research paper. I investigated various state-specific healthcare policies, but more specifically at Louisiana, Florida, and New York. I believe that lunging into research that focused so intently on state policies helped me gain the ability to analyze policy outcomes and how they affect communities, the healthcare community in this case. In this project, I connected the stakeholders who design and implement plans for healthcare access, to outcomes for citizens, which gave me a much deeper understanding of the policy process. It also helped me understand the importance of including citizens and stakeholders in the policy process. Having an intricate knowledge of how the policy process is diverse and work in various states will directly help me with my new job as the Policy Analyst in the Governor's Office on Education and Workforce Transformation.
To participate and contribute to the policy process, public administrators must first understand how and why policies are enacted. To do this, they must have at least a limited understanding of research or statistics because these details play a role in the policy process. During my Seminar in Public Policy and Administration, I analyzed a public policy issue piece by piece, which culminated into a full public policy analysis. The policy area on which I focused on was public education—more specifically, the disparity in diversity between students and teachers and administrators in the Coffee County, Alabama School System. I identified and defined the problem, assembled evidence to support the claim, constructed the status quo and three alternatives, selected three criteria in which I evaluated the alternatives against, projected the outcomes and confronted the trade-offs. The topic of diversity is highly sensitive and critical in public education today. Since this policy analysis was a project that focused on a current issue within a specific geographical area, it provided me with better critical thinking, analytical, data analysis, research, and presentation skills that will directly help me when I am faced with analyzing future policies. I am to identify stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels of education and analyze how the implementation of policies will directly affect each of the stakeholders. This policy analysis was an educational and informative assignment that allowed me to receive experience so that I can actively participate in and contribute to the policy process.