This article argues that the worlds which comparative education has explored and is exploring are characterised by three main political patterns. The first and oldest is the competitive nation-state as the starting point of the comparison, an educationalised nation-state, one whose relative global strength in economy and military prowess is attributed to the education system. The second pattern, easily visible in the Cold War, is the idea of an almost standardised progression, linked to economic, military and thus geopolitical power. And the contemporary pattern is that this nexus of global potency and education can be broken down into comparative school performance tests (for example in PISA currently) through which reform needs (almost automatically) are formulated at home, and elsewhere. If this analysis and its history – which is illustrated in the following – is even approximately accurate, ‘comparative education’ may need to re-think some of its basic assumptions about itself.