This chapter should be particularly rewarding for students who have paid close attention to the last several chapters. It explains why state and local governments are important, concentrating on the policy issues that touch every citizen: education, welfare, health, law enforcement, community planning, transportation, and regulation of the private sector.
Instructors should point out that most of the action in these policy areas is by state and local government. But the influence of the federal system should also be stressed. The national government is involved in every policy area through reports, research, incentives, funding, and mandates. All levels of government — national, state, and local — are involved, and they interact in the provision of practically every public service. The degree of involvement will be different in each policy area for each level, but all are engaged.
Hundreds of governmental units are wrestling with the same policy questions. Their answers may be very different, but that is part of the "laboratory of democracy" concept. Solutions can be tailored to local conditions. Localities succeed and fail with their home-grown, innovative programs. This is certainly part of the vitality of our federal system.
I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Trace the development of education as a public function.
2. Describe the most common structural arrangements for governing public education.
3. Identify and explain the four areas of educational reform.
4. Examine the role of the national government in education.
5. Discuss the funding crisis in higher education.
6. Examine how the 1996 welfare reform bill shifts the administrative burden to the states.
7. Provide examples of how the states have already made changes in the welfare system even before the welfare legislation of 1996 was enacted.
8. Describe the major tasks of public health programs.
9. Discuss reasons for the development of state police forces.
10. Indicate the functions performed by other police forces at the state and local level.
11. Trace the degree to which the national government has become involved in law enforcement.
12. Explain the role of zoning in encouraging orderly growth.
13. Examine how states have a vested interest in controlling the negative effects of population growth.
14. Examine the role of local, state, and federal governments in protecting the environment.
15. Describe the interplay of national, state, and local governments in transportation policy.
16. Explain why state and local governments have become involved in encouraging economic development, especially the international dimension.
17. List the kinds of regulatory actions taken by state and local governments.
18. List various public utilities and describe the manner in which public utilities are regulated by state and local government.
19. List the working conditions that are regulated by state and local government.