As educators, policymakers, and the media fret that the unprecedented levels of federal investment in our nation’s schools during the pandemic haven’t had the impact that they had hoped on helping students rebound, some have asked how policy can help schools rethink and reinvent schooling rather than stick with the status quo.

Bearing in mind the American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess’s adage that “policy can make people do things, but it can’t make them do those things well,” there are a variety of ways to categorize policies that attempt to spark novel schooling arrangements. Here’s one taxonomy that I’ve created to distinguish different policies designed to support and foster innovation in education: permission granting, changing what’s valued, infrastructure development, and research and development.