Question

Imagine Washington State is considering implementing a program that pays monetary awards to families when their high school age children meet certain goals (for example, school attendance, achievement on standardized tests, receiving regular dental checkups, and receiving flu shots). WSIPP has been asked by the state legislature to assess whether the state should adopt this policy.

a. Name three potential secondary impacts that WSIPP might consider in evaluating the policy.

b. Indicate how WSIPP might go about making predictions of one of these impacts and then monetize them.

Answer 1

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy [WSIPP] is a creation by the state legislature of the Washington state which undertakes researches that are related to the public policy issues of the state.

a. In the given case, it is said that the Washington state is considering of implementing a program that would provide monetary rewards for high school age children who meets certain specific goals like attendance, standardised tests etc. Although the policy action is a good alternative to encourage the children in their education and the way forward, the following secondary impact may also be evaluated by WSIPP before such a policy is being implemented

· Whether it would be profitable or advantageous to the state legislature while implementing the program is an important question to be analysed. It should be considered whether imparting such a program would ensure better results in education that would be able to generate better returns in the future.

· Whether it is affordable by the state government is also to be analysed. Since the state houses a large number of children in this group, whether the state can afford such a program on an equity basis must be considered.

· Whether it would cause any harm to the existing mechanism is also to be considered. Once the policy is implied, it has to be thought of whether it would cause a sense of disharmony in the current educational system and if so what all measures could be adopted to overcome the same should also be considered.

b. Considering the case of whether the policy would be able to generate revenue back to the state in future, the following measures could be adopted by WSIPP to evaluate the same and make predictions of the impacts so as to monetize them

· The short-term effects of such a policy among the children could be evaluated from the school records and the reasons for shortfalls may be analysed.

· Proper planning can be initiated and the change of pattern can be undertaken to ensure that the policy is able to generate benefits for the public in the future

· Proper facilities could be arranged to make the benefits out of the children so that similar policy decisions would generate similar productive outcomes in the future.

· It may be predicted that provision of monetary rewards could make it smother for attaining higher education needs and hence would encourage better education in the state.

Thus, with the above considerations, it can be seen that with proper analysis and support along with the provision of monetary support, it could be channelised and in future, the question of getting profitable returns in the future can be solved.