Although decentralization has increasingly been advocated as a way of enhancing educational quality, its potential in this area is still subject to some debate. This paper traces the popularity of education decentralization over the past few decades to highlight that the post 2000 era has been characterized by a deepening of reforms implemented earlier, an enhanced focus on school decentralization interventions, and a notable increase in schemes in Africa. The article then examines the empirical evidence on the relationship between decentralization and educational quality to show that although the scholarship is limited in size and quality, a handful of rigorous studies suggest that decentralization has the potential to enhance quality. Detailed case studies on Mexico, Indonesia and Kenya supplement these two sets of analyses to not only showcase how decentralization policies have evolved over time in these countries, but to also illustrate why different decentralization approaches can result in dramatically different quality outcomes