Quality has emerged as an essential element of the common language of education, both as a means of problematising education and as a solution to diverse problems at grassroots level. This three-case comparative study explores how the apparent global consensus on the centrality of quality as a measurable attribute of education systems and as a legitimate purpose of and justification for education reforms manifests itself in Brazil, China and Russia. The analysis explores the extent to which educational quality complies with the global quality script, how national re-conceptualisations of quality exhibit links to transnational educational agendas through educational discourses and policies and how the global is recontextualised and reinterpreted in domestic contexts. Analysis of the three cases reveals a common assumption of quality as a quantifiable and measurable attribute of the education system that is best examined through national and international standardised tests of learning achievements. Standardised testing is seen as both a way to identify quality and as a central instrument of quality improvement. At the same time, comparison of the three cases reveals interesting differences in the way the quality paradigm has been adopted locally.