Introduction to Policy Analysis Project Menu Spring 2011
(Short Titles in Parentheses)
Project 1: / Integrating Health Care Services with Special Ed (Special Ed) / 2
Project 2: / Evaluating the Impact of the Victims/Offender Education Group Programs (Victims/ Offender Education) / 3
Project 3: / Program Design for Public Goods Charge for Water Use Efficiency (Public Goods Charge) / 5
Project 4: /
Increasing Equitable Access to On-Line Governmental Activities (On-line Equitable Access)
/ 6Project 5: / Adult Education in Berkeley Unified School District (Adult Education) / 7
Project 6: /
Strengthening Youth Programming in Low-Income Housing (Youth Programming)
/ 8Project 7: / Should Berkeley Adopt a Gang Injunction? (Gang Injunction) / 9
Project 8: /
Analysis of Prisoner Reentry programs for West Contra Costa County (Prisoner Reentry)
/ 10Project 9: / Ensuring Nail Salon Worker Safety (Worker Safety) / 11
Project 10: /
Reducing Pollution in the San Francisco Bay (Bay Pollution)
/ 12Project 11: /
Development of a new Berkeley Campus Financial Model (Berkeley Campus Financial Model)
/ 13Project 12: /
Reducing UC Berkeley Energy Consumption Campus Wide (Berkeley Campus Energy)
/ 14Project 13: / Analysis of Legal Representation for Life Prisoners (Legal Representation) / 15
Project 14: / Improving Air Quality in the San Joaquin Valley (Air Quality) / 16
Project 15: /
Should School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) do Mental Health Early Intervention? (SBHC Mental Health)
/ 18Project 16: /
Evaluating Use of Performance-Based Contracting for Foster Agencies (Foster Agencies)
/ 19Project 17: /
Analysis of Pricing Models for Integrated Trash Management (Trash Management Pricing)
/ 21Project 18: /
Identifying Lessons Learned in Managing Transportation Public-Private Partnerships (Public-Private Partnerships)
/ 22Project 19: /
Improving Urban Access to Quality Food: Public Policy and Finance Options for Alameda County (Food Access)
/ 23Project 20: / Using Non-Traditional Settings for Primary Health Care in Alameda County (Non-Traditional Health Care) / 24
Project 21: / Analysis of State Policies Impacting Community College (Community College) / 25
Project 22: / Setting Priorities for the Community Benefits Fund (CBF) / 26
Project 23: / Climate Change and Dams in Eastern Africa: Risky Business (Eastern Africa) / 28
Project 24: / California Postsecondary Education Dilemma (California Postsecondary) / 29
Project 1: Integrating Health Care Services with Special Ed (short title: Special Ed)
Client: Oakland Unified School District (Oakland, CA)
Project Description & Goals:
The health needs of today’s children and youth differ from those of the past. Students in OUSD disproportionately bear the burden of chronic health conditions including asthma, insulin-dependent diabetes, severe allergies, seizures and other health conditions. The number of students receiving Special Ed services has also increased, particularly students with medical conditions. This is having a significant impact on the direction of school health and coordination of services.
Programs for Exceptional Children (PEC) (also known as the Special Ed department) provides Free and Appropriate Public Education to eligible students. Although the intent of PL94142 is to mainstream students and place them in the least restrictive educational environment, PEC’s supportive services are implemented separate from the traditional educational program. Increasingly both students receiving regular educational services and Special Ed services bear the burden of significant health conditions. Students have diabetes, asthma, seizures, and specialized health care procedures and require daily medication management.
PEC, while an academically focused department has been responsible for allocating resources for agency-contracted nursing services, although health-related services must be performed under the supervision of a school nurse.
The OUSD school district would like an IPA team to assess and develop a plan to determine the most effective and efficient way to integrate Special Ed health-related services (i.e., performing specialized physical health care procedures) with OUSD Nursing Services that serve the general population of students.
Related questions include:
· What is the best way to integrate efficient and coordinated health-related services year round for students receiving special education services?
· What are the fiscal, programmatic and logistical implications of having Health Services manage agency-contracted nursing services and OUSD Aides to Special Ed (ASE), which has been historically supervised by PEC?
Client Information:
The mission of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) is "to ensure that all students graduate as caring, competent, and critical thinkers, as well as fully-informed, engaged, and contributing citizens, prepared to succeed in college and career.” OUSD serves over 10,000 high school students in 22 high schools. The district serves a high-need population, with nearly 60% of students eligible for free and reduced lunch and nearly 20% English Language Learners. Though OUSD has the distinction of being the most improved large urban district in California for five years running, its high schools continue to struggle with serious issues: an unacceptably high dropout rate, a wide gap in performance between White and Asian students and their African American and Latino counterparts, and lack of preparation for those who do graduate for the post-secondary options that await them. For details about the school district, including budget information, number of schools, and demographic makeup of pupils, please see: http://publicportal.ousd.k12.ca.us/199410818193832733/site/default.asp.
Policy Area(s); Education, Health
Project 2: Evaluating the Impact of the Victims/Offender Education Group Programs (short title: Victims/Offender Education)
Client: Insight Prison Project (IPP) (San Rafael, CA)
Project Description & Goals:
One of IPP’s cornerstone programs is the Victim/Offender Education Group (VOEG). VOEG programs are conducted in three different settings: with men in San Quentin State Prison (San Rafael), women in the Federal Correctional Institute (Dublin) and at-risk adults who participated in gangs as youth through Homeboy Industries (Los Angeles).
The question posed for this IPA project is: How can IPP evaluate the impact of the VOEG programs on different populations in order to develop replicable models?
VOEG classes have been conducted at San Quentin for 6 years. These students are all serving life sentences, with the possibility of parole. In many cases, the men do not choose to take a VOEG course until they have already been incarcerated for the better part of a decade. Since they tend to join the class at a point when they are seeking tools for introspection and deep reflection into their past, they may differ significantly from the general population at San Quentin – thereby complicating opportunities to make comparisons between groups. Additionally, only a handful of men who have completed the VOEG curriculum have been released on parole. Due to the small group size, reliable quantitative analyses of VOEG impacts on recidivism and successful reintegration cannot yet be made (GSPP students may, however, find valuable qualitative research opportunities in interviewing the men who have paroled). Further, any effort to collect data or conduct research within state prisons is severely restricted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s research guidelines and human subject protection protocols. Another unique challenge to evaluating learning outcomes for students in the State and Federal prisons is that students may be enrolled in additional programming such as the college program, substance abuse classes, non-violent communication, literacy, parenting. Participation in the VOEG class may therefore not be an isolated instructional or transformative experience.
Project objectives include:
· To identify existing relevant resources that may assist in VOEG evaluation (studies on similar programs, survey instruments, etc.)
· To identify appropriate measures on which VOEG should be evaluated
· To develop a plan to evaluate VOEG courses, given various institutional restrictions on access to data or survey implementation
· To conduct quantitative or qualitative evaluations of VOEG to the extent possible given the scope and timeframe of the project
Potential deliverables may include:
· A survey instrument
· Preliminary qualitative or quantitative analysis of VOEG
· Analysis of research conditions at each site (availability of data, access to records, restrictions on conducting interviews/surveys, etc.)
· A few alternative evaluation plans or options along with their strengths, weaknesses and potential timelines
Client Information:
Insight Prison Project’s (IPP) mission is to transform the lives of those impacted by incarceration through programs designed to develop behavior inspired by insight, accountability and compassion. Our vision is of a vibrant and just society that inspires individual transformation beyond the walls of both personal and institutional incarceration.
Insight Prison Project was founded in 1997 with one class for 14 inmates. Today, IPP teaches inmates to leave the prison of their minds and replace it with the light of insight, accountability and service by offering 18 core classes to more than 250 prisoners a week. Our classes focus on preparing the men to become responsible and productive members of the community when they leave prison.
IPP programs foster a transformational re-education process that combines victim impact accountability, emotional competency and intelligence, rational restructuring, and embodied integration. These elements bring about a shift, transforming ingrained patterns of destructive behavior into conscious, life-enhancing choices.
Policy Area(s): Criminal Justice
Project 3: Program Design for Public Goods Charge for Water Use Efficiency (short title: Public Goods Charge)
Client: California Public Utilities Commission (San Francisco, CA)
Project Description & Goals:
The Scoping Plan for the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32, Nunez) calls for the creation of a Public Goods Charge for Water Use Efficiency (PGC WUE) as one of six measures to facilitate the reduction and mitigation of GHG emissions in the water-energy nexus. While a substantial policy analysis project completed by a GSPP IPA Student Consultant Team in 2009 demonstrates the efficacy of using a PGC WUE as a means to financing a subset of the AB32 Scoping Plan measures for the water-energy nexus, i.e. low impact development/stormwater runoff, recycled water, and water systems water use efficiency improvements among others, and garnered rather unprecedented statewide attention as part of significant discourse on the future funding for water conservation and water use efficiency programs and projects throughout California, the 2009 analysis did not spell out the legislation necessary to achieve the PGC WUE’s passage nor did it devise an administrative plan for the collection and distribution of funds from the PGC WUE. With the demise of the previously planned 2010 Water Bond which was pulled from the November, 2010 ballot, proposals for a PGC WUE have gained substantial attention from a variety of legislative, water resources regulatory, water agency, and environmental stakeholding arenas and we wish to continue to engage GSPP student consultants in our on-going efforts to design an efficacious PGC WUE whether as a stand alone surcharge, or as a component of the existing PGC for Energy Efficiency which is up for reconsideration in 2012.
The 2010 PGC WUE Consulting Project will continue to engage this vibrant policy arena by bringing student consultants to collaborate with the water and water and energy policy analysts of the California Public Utilities Commission’s Policy and
Planning Division to craft and weigh a variety of legislative options and strategies for establishing the PGC WUE including the potential for combining the PGC WUE with legislation to “reup” the 2010 PGC for Energy Efficiency. As well, the Project will entail devising one or more models for administering the PGC WUE with municipal and investor-owned/private water utilities on a regional basis drawing upon the existing Integrated Regional Water Management Plans (IRWM’s) and Programs of the California Department of Water Resources.
Client Information:
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the State’s principal regulatory agency charged with regulating California’s Investor-Owned Electric Utilities (IOU’s) comprising 80 per cent of the State’s electric utilities, the State’s Water IOU’s including 20 percent of the State’s water utilities, as well as the telecommunications industry, and major components of California’s transportation sector. The CPUC is particularly engaged in collaboratively developing and implementing statewide policies and strategies addressing Climate Change (AB32), renewable energy generation, the water energy nexus, and water conservation. The CPUC’s Policy and Planning Division, which would serve as the direct clients for the IPA Consulting Team/s, particularly provides the CPUC with proactive leadership on emerging policy issues of broad importance to the Commission by supporting long-term policy development through independent research and analysis in concert with other divisions and State agencies.
Policy Area(s): Environmental
Project 4: Increasing Equitable Access to On-Line Governmental Activities (short title: On-line Equitable Access)
Client: 311 Customer Service Center (San Francisco, CA)
Project Description & Goals:
311 seeks an application of the findings of a previous IPA report, Digital Inclusion in San Francisco (2007), to the center’s public outreach methods and approach. Working with the City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Technology, the research team found that as an increasing proportion of economic, social, and government activities move online, low-income, African-American, Latino, Asian, and immigrant communities are less able to experience these benefits.
In 2007, the GSPP IPA project with the San Francisco Department of Telecommunications and Information Services pointed to the increase in on-line government activities and information and the barriers faced by those with lower levels of access or skills about the computers and internet. Recommendations focused on grant-making to increase public access to computers and the internet, better tracking of existing resources and needs and finally the importance of developing bench-marks to define progress and success.
As we increase the amount of content and service requests that can be made on-line, we would like to do so in an equitable manner. We ask the IPA team to answer the following questions:
· How can we tailor our outreach to bridge the digital divide for the groups mentioned as well as older, disabled and limited English-speaking adults? For example, if as the report notes, parents and older adults look to their children for assistance with computers, should we be doing increased outreach through the public school system or city colleges?
· How do we brand 311 more effectively (across all groups) to communicate the different contact methods available?
· How can we build an ongoing customer feedback mechanism to stay in tune with customer needs, abilities and access to technology?