A future-perfect global education agenda is currently being designed. Much extant research investigates the past-imperfect implementation of successive waves of global education goals. This article is based on a study that investigated the ways in which formal policy commitments in a post-MDGs agenda may be constrained by contemporary global policy practices. Using narrative analysis of interview data from key global policy actors, I argue that future policy will be constrained by: first, the assumptions that currently underlie global policy actors’ narratives of quality and equity; and second, new consensual aid implementation mechanisms that monitor narrow definitions of quality.