James Anderson (Public Policy-Making, 1975) is such an organized writer. I would not truly have been able to recognize this if I had not started Jay Shafritz' book, Introducing Public Administration (2005). I read chapter 4. After each section, I asked myself, "Why did he include that topic with that topic" or "Why did he create this section if there is absolutely no meat in it".

The second problem may or may not be a problem. It could be my own bias blindness. If I am of the same ideological bend as Anderson (I don't know) then I probably wouldn't notice him inserting personal bias; But, I felt like Shafritz included much more personal opinion stated as fact than Anderson, who seemed to be more objective. Shafritz came across as snide about those silly ideas of the Republicans.

Book Summary Public Policy-Making by Anderson (1975)

Public policy making is a series of actions that a governmental body or its approved proxy perform in order to produce an output that addresses a problem. To arrive at an output the policy makers commonly flow through the following steps: Identifying the problem, policy formulation, policy adoption, implementation, evaluation. Public policy is not only what the government says it will do but what it does. Unlike private businesses where profit is measured in dollars, public business profit is measured in the positive impact it has on society less the cost in money and loss of freedom that it imposes. The sections below will describe the steps of public policy making with a focus on the idea that the customer does come first. <Click here to continue>

Anderson, J.E. (1975). Public Policy-Making. New York:Praegar.

Last Friday, I went to a graduate program presentation at UTA. I have been toying with the idea of getting a Masters in some business field instead of my doctorate in psychology. It is the difference between 8-10 hours a day for six years for my Doctorate or two years for my Masters. I've been doing a lot of web searching and the degree that would seem to be of the most use is the Master in Public Administration. After the presentation, I scoured my home library and found Public Policy-Making by James Anderson. I'm reading that book right now and I ordered Introducing Public Administration by Shafritz. I have over a year before I have to make a decision since I will still be home educating for three more years for certain; but, I need to figure out where I want to jump if they decide to go to public High School.

I don't see this as a total jump away from psychology. Much of the stuff I have been reading seems steeped in Social Psychology and a true understanding of how & why people think may be a good thing. So, I will also continue reading my cognitive psychology…and speaking of which…I found a copy of Quest for Consciousness by Koch at Half Price Books so I can start reading that book again. I left my copy at the coffee shop over a month ago and no one ever returned it so I haven't been able to study in a while.