In the article an educational policy concept is discussed, a concept that since the late 1990s has received an increasing amount of attention in Swedish education policy: systematic quality work. When the government in 1997 introduced written quality reports as a new element in the governance of education the emphasis was on the annual reports (Skr 1996/97: 112). A few years later the term "systematic" was added. At the same time as the expectations linked to systematic quality work increased, the National Agency of Education recurrently reported on difficulties and shortcomings which they claimed to find, both by the Authority's development-oriented activities and by the education inspections. In the new Education Act (SFS 2010:800), the requirement of quality reports is removed, while systematic quality work, now linked to the concept of influence, has been given a stronger legal position. The article raises questions about the expectations directed at systematic quality work in current educational reforms and ask if, and in that case how, these have changed over time. Questions are also asked how systematic quality work can be understood in relation to concepts such as evaluation and follow-ups, plus the possible consequences that might follow for the pedagogical practice, and in relation to the educational policy ambition to strengthen quality and equivalence.