Imagine yourself as a policy analyst working for an independent think tank in New York City.
Please read the CDC 2021 guidelines on education policy options to address the Coronavirus. (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-childcare-guidance.html)The guidelines refer to policy options as “prevention strategies” and include: vaccination, universal indoor masking, physical distancing, screening and testing, ventilation, hand washing and respiratory etiquette, and contact tracing. It is your job to write a policy memo summarizing your estimates of the monetary/financial costs and benefits of at least 2 policy alternatives/prevention strategies AND the status quo. In short, how much will a school (Pace High School, NYC) have to pay and how much financial benefit (reduction in costs) will the city get from each option.
This is difficult because so much is in flux, but you should focus on issues like: direct costs of purchasing new goods and services; direct costs of labor; direct benefits on reduced medical expenses; indirect costs of lost wages. You can do back of the envelope estimates, search the Internet for what things cost, or find government procurement reports online. When in doubt, make reasonable guesstimate and explain.
If the costs or benefits are uncertain – the probability of them happening is less than 100% — describe whether that cost or benefit is a high (>90%), medium (40-90%), or low probability outcome (<40%).
You should also consider whether any of the costs or benefits will happen in the future and thus will need to be discounted. YOU DO NOT NEED to do the discounting in your analysis, but you should note whether that is an issue to consider.
All of this should be reflected in a clean and simple table that summarizes all of your estimates and is included as an appendix at the end of the memo.
Alternative 1
Alternative 2
Alternative 3
Cost 1
Benefit 1
Etc.
Much of your analysis will be done in a spreadsheet like Excel. You may attach the spreadsheets used to make your estimates as additional appendices. Your memo should explain how you reached each estimate, the assumptions you made to make each estimate, the source of the data you used, and your final recommendation of which is the best option. You will be evaluated based on the depth and breadth of your analysis, the originality, and how you incorporate course material into your final memo.
The policy memo should be between 5 and 6 double-spaced, 12-point font, pages. DO NOT insert tables, graphs, maps, or charts into the body of the paper. Place all of that material and the works cited/bibliography in appendices at the end of the paper and reference them in the body (see Table 1, see Figure 3, etc.).
