Education Policy refers to the collection of laws or rules that govern the operation of education systems. It seeks to answer questions about the purpose of education, the objectives (societal and personal) that it is designed to attain, the methods for attaining them and the tools for measuring their success or failure.

Education being an activity that impacts upon people of all ages, Education policy may be broken down into policy as regards pre-school provision, schooling, adult education and training, university education, and so on.

Examples of areas subject to debate in education policy, specifically from the field of schools, include school size, class size, school choice, school privatization, tracking, teacher education and certification, teacher pay, teaching methods, curricular content, graduation requirements, school infrastructure investment, and the values that schools are expected to uphold and model.

Education policy analysis is the scholarly study of education policy. Research intended to inform education policy is carried out in a wide variety of institutions and in many academic disciplines. Important researchers are affiliated with departments of psychology, economics, sociology, and human development, in addition to schools and departments of education or public policy. Examples of education policy analysis may be found in such academic journals as Education Policy Analysis Archives.

First Year Orientation: Mandatory process in the USA that all incoming freshman students go through before being able to register or attend classes in the fall

Public Education:Education mandated for the children of the general public by the government, whether national, regional, or local, provided by an institution of civil government, and paid for, in whole or in part, by taxes

School Choice: Describes any one of several forms of publicly-funded alternative education program that allows students to choose to attend any of various participating private and public schools, usually based on a system of vouchers, tax credits, or scholarships.

School Punishment: Schools generally employ a hierarchy of punishments for infractions of rules

Single Sex Education: Practice of conducting education where male and female students attend separate classes or in separate buildings or schools.

Year Round School: Operation of educational institutions on a calendar-system that tracks students into class schedules throughout the entire calendar year.