Ch 12: Public Policy Review 2305

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (plaintiffs)

(1) the individual mandate exceeded Congress' enumerated powers under the Commerce Clause (2) the Medicaid expansions were unconstitutionally coercive (3) the employer mandate impermissibly interfered with state sovereignty.

Educational Excellence and Accountability in Texas. What new fears were created during this time? Why?

- The impact that failure rates would have on retention and graduation rates - The classrooms as teachers and administrators complained about the growing need to teach to the tests - Test scores/functional illiteracy was rising

San Antonio v. Rodríguez background decision

- A federal district court ruled that the Texas school finance system was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision was overturned - In 1973 the Court ruled 5-4 that the clause did not require states such as Texas to subsidize poorer school districts

Medicaid and the coronavirus pandemic affect

- Could have overwhelmed the heath care system - Rising rates of unemployment left many people with no medical insurance at the very time that they needed it the most

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission oversees 5 services. What are they. What are their purpose?

- Department of Family and Protective Services, Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Aging and Disability Services, Department of State Health Services - For coordinating, determining eligibility for, and administering the major welfare and antipoverty programs in Texas

Three specific challenges have played major roles in Texas educational policy over the last 50 years. What were they?

- Desegregation - Equity in funding - Educational excellence

What is the fourth stage of public policy?

- Evaluation - Here, the goals of public policy along with the incentives or sanctions to support them are put into effect by a particular government agency

What are the two sources that fund education?

- General revenue fund form the state - Local property taxes

What is the third stage of public policy?

- Implementation - Here, the goals of public policy along with the incentives or sanctions to support them are put into effect by a particular government agency - Budgetary policy plays a major here which determines success or failure

Medicaid Participation

- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medicaid was expanded to include older adults not fully covered by Medicare, people with disabilities, and pregnant women - Individuals participating in TANF and SSI automatically qualify for Medicaid

What is Medicade?

- Is a joint state-federal program established under the Social Security Amendments of 1965 as Title 19 of the Social Security Act. - This act requires that Texas and other states follow certain principles and meet certain standards if they are to receive federal money to help fund the program

What are three challenges facing educational policy?

- Is the low level of public spending per pupil - The demographics are increasingly disadvantaged - Texas higher dropout rates particularly among Latinos and African Americans which affect state and federal efforts to address the problem of poverty

Texas has been evaluated along a number of dimensions, two of which stand out. What are they?

- Judged by changes in the number of people on welfare, the reforms appear to be a success - Judged by a second measure—the number of people moving from welfare to work

What is the fifth stage of public policy?

- Legitimation - The establishment and recognition in the political community of the legality and constitutionality of a particular policy initiative

What are the principles that Medicaid requires?

- Medicaid services must be available on a statewide basis. Second, the same level of service must be available to all clients throughout the state - Children are entitled to a broader range of services than adults - Participants must be allowed to use any health care provider who meets program standards - The amount, duration, and scope of medical services must be "sufficiently reasonable

Education Policy in a New Era

- More rigorous test were created state and national wise - Achievement gap was found

What is the second stage of public policy?

- Policy formulation - Here, the more general ideas that the public and lawmakers have about social and political problems are clarified, and strategies for dealing with these specifically defined problems are developed

What is the first stage of public policy?

- Problem identification - Here, society at large and actors in the political system develop an understanding of how we must think about and address a particular problem - Ideology play a major role in this stage

Public education during the corona virus pandemic effects.

- Schools closed - STAAR testing canceled - Curriculums and assessment had to be reconceived and prepared for delivery - Student shad to learn how to use new software - Teachers had to lean how to do classes online

Educational Excellence and Accountability in Texas. What new agency was created + policy?

- Select Committee on Public Education - "No Pass, No Play"

Welfare in Texas (1935-1996)

- Social Security Act of 1935 (Old Age Insurance Unemployment Insurance, Aid for Dependent Children, Old Age Assistance, and Aid for the Blind). - Department of Public Welfare established in 1939 with three members of 6-year terms. Minimize cost to state while maximizing federal dollars. Constitutional Ceiling. - Medicaid was a federal and state program financing medical services to low-income people in long the term - Supplemental security income - Aid to Families with dependent children (AFDC)

San Antonio v. Rodríguez and Edgewood ISD v. Kirby effects

- State courts were taken out of the policy-making process regarding financing public education for the first time since the original Edgewood decision - The debate over equity and financing public education was pushed firmly into the legislative budgetary process

Financing of Medicaid comes form who? Is their a cap?

- Texas - federal government - No

What was the oppositions against charter schools?

- They will drain money from public schools - Distract attention away from the needs of other, possibly more needy groups - They will not be able to meet challenges of educating youth any better than traditional public schools

Why are policymakers forever looking for ways to make the Medicaid program less costly

- To bring more efficiency into the program - To institute cost controls and cutbacks to providers

CPS had become one of the top concerns of the governor and the legislative leaders. Why?

- Underfunding of it - The state employs too few caseworkers to watch over the foster care program - Turnover is too high

Welfare and the Coronavirus

- Unemployment rates exploded and hit the poor people the hardest - Unemployment insurance requests increased

What were the initial problems public education faced?

- Very short funded - Shortage of supplies and textbooks - Inadequate - Poorly trained teachers

What was the purpose of the TANF?

- Was to make families self-sufficient by ending the cycle of dependency on government benefits - Provides temporary financial assistance to single-parent and two-parent families in which one or both parents are unemployed or have a disability

Plessy v. Ferguson.

- a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal - Separate but equal

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated as well as it violating the equal protection clause

Edgewood ISD v. Kirby decision

9-0 decision, the Texas Supreme Court held that the funding system was, indeed, in violation of the state constitution. The court held that education was a fundamental right under the Texas Constitution and that the "glaring disparities" between rich and poor schools violated the efficiency clause of the constitution

Affordable Care Act

An expansion of Medicaid, most of employers must provide health insurance, have insurance or face repercussions, prevents rejection based on pre-existing condition(s). Also referred to as "Obamacare", signed into law in 2010.

NFIB v. Sebelius

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had the authority to require that individuals purchase health insurance because Congress had the authority to levy taxes.

Public policy

It is the expressed goals of a governmental body by incentives or sanctions

BLANK is the single most important issue confronting policy makers regarding Medicaid in Texas

Cost

What dose CHIP provide?

Coverage for children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid

How is the federal portion of the financing for Medicaid determined

Every year by comparing average state per capita income to the average national per capita income

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius decision

Four liberal justices believed that most features of the ACA were constitutional. Four conservative justices countered that they were not. Representing the decisive vote, Chief Justice Roberts rejected the idea that people could be mandated or forced to buy insurance under Congress's power to regulate commerce, but he nevertheless concluded that a tax penalizing people who did not get medical insurance met constitutional muster

Poverty

It is the condition under which individuals or families do not have the resources to meet their basic needs, including food, shelter, health care, transportation, and clothing

San Antonio v. Rodríguez background

Lawyers for eight children in the poor Edgewood independent school district (ISD) in the San Antonio area argued that the system of financing public schools based on local property taxes was unfair

The roots of education policy in Texas begging

Public education was a local affair

"No Pass, No Play"

Students who failed to earn a passing grade of 70 could not participate in any extracurricular activities for the next six-week grading period

Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt

Supreme Court abortion ruling that struck down state law provisions in Texas as presenting an undue burden on women seeking abortions. This decision invalidated numerous state and local laws that imposed similar limitations on clinics.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

a welfare program passed in 1996 to provide temporary assistance to families with needy children; replacing the AFDC program, TANF sought to make poor families self-sufficient and to give states greater flexibility in setting benefit levels, eligibility requirements, and other program details

Roe v. Wade

The 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that a state ban on all abortions was unconstitutional. The decision forbade state control over abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy, permitted states to limit abortions to protect the mother's health in the second trimester, and permitted states to protect the fetus during the third trimester.

poverty index

The U.S. government's specification of income levels below which people are considered to be living in poverty

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

The bill implemented major changes to U.S. social welfare policy, replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program

Efficiency

The idea that policy should maximize the outputs of government with a minimum commitment of resources.

Public education during the corona virus pandemic show?

The many inequalities found in the school system like having access to technology while other did not

San Antonio v. Rodríguez and Edgewood ISD v. Kirby

These cases forced policy makers to look at the funding problems of education in a new light and to formulate new solutions to address these problems

What was the oppositions against vouchers?

Upper middle income students will leave poorer students behind in poorly funded public schools

Edgewood ISD v. Kirby question

Whether the system of funding public schools through local property taxes fulfilled the Texas State Constitution's provisions on education

Do Latinos make up the majority of Texans living below the poverty line?

Yes

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

a federally and state-financed program for children living with parents or relatives who fell below state standards of need; replaced in 1996 by TANF

Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

a national welfare program passed in 1972 that provides assistance to low-income elderly or disabled individuals; replaced the federal-state programs that had offered assistance to the blind, the permanently and totally disabled, and the aged

Texas ranked 41st in - student expenditure in 2020-2021

per capitia

Gilmer-Aikin Laws

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

The public appears to be in favor of - expenditures going to public education but split on partisan lines

increased

In the 1920's and 30's, Texas spent an average of - less per student on the education of African American students than on White students

one-third

Rationality

the idea in public-policy making that we have clearly identified goals and that we seek to achieve these goals in an optimal or efficient manner

The failures of Child Protective Services to protect its wards and the legislative and judicial responses to the CPS crisis. What does it demonstrate?

vividly why public policy matters to Texans in the twenty-first century because with bad public policy comes big and small problems

San Antonio v. Rodríguez

was a landmark case involving the constitutionality of using property taxes to fund public schools