Abstract Policies mandate or prohibit behavior, reward, sanction, legitimizes and provide inducements for particular behaviors, transfer resources to enable particular types of activities, and define or transfer authority. Although administrative decentralization and poor enforcement barriers can limit the impact of policies, policies constrain school and teacher practice. This article elaborates upon current policy debates and discusses translating policy into practice. The article introduces Preventing School Failure's issue and employs 3 policy issues that affect students with emotional and behavioral disorders to introduce policy analysis, identify policy issues affecting schools, describe the policy environment in which these issues are nested, and explore the impact that policies have on practice: the IDEA and its reauthorization, discipline and zero tolerance, and state and national standards based accountability.