Efforts beginning in the 1990s to raise the qualifications and quality of China's teachers have brought about new regulations, standards and systems of accountability. Reflecting broader economic, social and political changes, new policies have moved to create more standard definitions of teacher quality and common forms of accountability. Yet what seems like a process of global convergence occurs in interaction with the persistence of more organic structures that have long been part of China's teaching cultures. Chinese educators appear to be constructing hybrid models that rely on insider and outsider expertise.