The Mayor of your city wants to increase public funding for education by 30% above last year’s budget and
has asked you, the top education advisor, to recommend the best way to spend it. You should evaluate
these options: 1. Using an across-the-board increase that ensures that at least 90% of this increase goes
directly to every school–regardless of need or performance; 2. Devising a formula that allocates these
new funds based on an objective measure of students’ needs–hence, more money could flow to the
schools serving students with the greatest poverty or having special educational needs such as language
barriers; 3. Allocating all new funds to charter schools (which are public schools run by non-profit
organizations that often raise additional private funds); 4. Spending half on schools with the greatest
needs and half on early childhood education programs teaching young mothers about nutrition, and
providing remedial education, and enrichment for children and their parents.
You should analyze these policy options by constructing a matrix that includes the following criteria: 1.
efficiency/effectiveness (which option is most likely to yield the greatest social benefit?) 2. equity (who
gets the greatest benefit?); 3. administrative capacity (which options would be responsibly managed by
public agencies?), and 4. political feasibility (which option is most likely to be approved by the city council,
and why would one think this?).
Your memo to the mayor should explain the criteria used in the analysis of these policy options with a
strong, clear recommendation of one policy option. The mayor wants to gain political credit for increasing
the city’s social investment in human capital, and your job is to give good advice on how to do this, by
maximizing the improvement of the educational and social opportunity of young people in your city.
Sample Solution
