According to Fowler (2013), Lowi and Ginsberg developed a framework for identifying policies that fall into one of four categories. Admittedly, each policy may have sections that overlap within said framework; however, the main focus of any policy either aligns with distributive, regulatory, or redistributive (Fowler, 2013). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a regulatory policy. According to Lowi and Ginsberg, “regulatory policies are formalized rules expressed in general terms and applied to large groups of people” (Fowler, 2013, p. 216). Regulatory policies …show more content…
Currently, students wait until their last year of school to complete the forty hours of service. This produces unnecessary stress to the students, parents, counselors, and student advisors. If the students would earn the required ten hours of service each year, this eliminates the last minute stress to everyone involved. This policy change also provides a better tracking system to make sure students are actually completing the necessary hours as well as documentation of said hours. It also provides an incentive to attend the Links or Advisory time because the only way to submit the correct documentation is to submit it to the student advisor.
This policy also takes on a mandate quality. McDonnell and Elmore define mandate as a way to have individuals behave in a certain way and allows for enforcement (Fowler, 2013). Having the ten hours of community service tied to the quarter hour of credit allows for enforcement of this policy. When students fail to meet these requirements, they are jeopardizing their attempts to meet all the graduation requirements.
Hortatory policy is when a period of time is available to encourage change through the use of propaganda (Fowler, 2013). Slogans, morning or afternoon announcement reminders, and banners may be used throughout the school year to remind students to obtain their ten hours of service or run the risk of not meeting …show more content…
Anytime policy is introduced, there are drawbacks. According to Fowler (2013), no policy pleases every stakeholder and often times, concessions are made in the final draft of the policy to satisfy such individuals (Fowler, 2013). Depending upon the instrument used to develop or evaluate a policy, there are certain drawbacks with each. Whenever a policy is developed, the author needs to examine the potential drawbacks and plan for them.
Organizational changes always have a price tag attached to them. Unpredictability is one of the major drawbacks when using system change as a means to develop any policy. Mandates, which often lead to adversarial relationships, are met with resistance from those affected. On the other hand, hortatory policy may be perceived as a manipulative policy. In other words, each time a policy is implemented, someone, somewhere finds fault with it because they believe it restricts their freedom of choice or how they are allowed to live their lives.
Combatting such drawbacks becomes important when implementation is