Policy entities are the reforms, assessment practices, legislation, court decisions and government programs this atlas documents, distinct from the institution a policy governs and from the approach a curriculum standard may prescribe, each its own entity linked back by relationship. This category is grouped into fourteen bands, from assessment practice and state standards initiatives through Supreme Court decisions and federal legislation, covering the concrete decisions governments, courts and standards bodies have made about how education is delivered, tested, governed and funded, contested debates named honestly as debated rather than settled.