Elitism argues that the values and experiences of the political elite shape policy, while institutionalism contends that an individual's behaviour is constrained by institutional settings. This article shows that both perspectives work well overall, while offering persuasive arguments, but the former is dominated by the latter. This explains the reluctance of leaders to equalize education if doing so means sacrificing their future promotion. Although provincial leaders have substantial influence on education equalization, such influence is the consequence of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) personnel regulations. Two distinct patterns are revealed: whereas governors, being more promotable, are more likely to be significantly constrained by the "promotion rule", party secretaries, as more terminal officials, are more likely to be restricted by the "rule of retirement". A heteroskedastic linear model that takes into account the influence of the speed of a leader's promotion on the variance of their behaviour shows that the "faster runners"--those who are more quickly promoted--in a hierarchy are also the faster learners in their institutions and their behaviour regarding education equalization is more convergent. (Contains 13 notes, 5 tables, and 2 figures.)