Teaching Performance in Public Affairs Education

Abstract

A task force of the National Academy of Public Administration released a report in January 2000 that questioned whether public affairs programs were in a position to cope with the transformation of governance well underway in public institutions. An essential part of this transformation is performance, a component of capacity building referenced throughout the report. This article presents the results of a curriculum survey of the programs affiliated with the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration to determine the extent to which students of public affairs education are offered instruction on the areas of performance, productivity improvement, and performance measurement. The findings reveal that 88 percent of the respondent programs provide instruction on these topics and that public affairs programs have made adjustments to their curriculum coverage since 1990.The author concludes that public affairs programs are in a position to embrace the transformation of governance in regard to performance.