The United Nations (UN) has developed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, recognizing that education is one of the main foundations for sustainable development. During the World Education Forum 2015 participants shared their vision: “to transform lives through education, recognizing the important role of education as a main driver of development and in achieving the other proposed SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals]”. To contribute to a sustainable society, students need to learn skills that will prepare them to solve 21 st century challenges. Mathematics is known as a major gatekeeper to education. Students from all genders and learning styles need to have equitable opportunities in education. In mathematics education, students are often rewarded for speed and memorization of facts. Many times, placement in accelerated classes is based on procedural knowledge alone. There is evidence to suggest that students who are accelerated without developing depth of understanding tend to drop out of mathematics and forgo the opportunities to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) related careers. This is a fundamental question about quality in education. Addressing this is important to ensure sustainability in the students’ learning progress and add value to their education. Taking into consideration the non‐linear structure of mathematics education and seeing mathematics education as a complex adaptive system, may lead to different kinds of decisions on students’ acceleration in mathematics, adding an important perspective about how to enhance quality in mathematics education. The seven principles of quality management (International Organization for Standardization [ISO], 2015) may guide decision makers through the process of continual improvement. When following the quality management principles, decisions need to be evidence‐based and need to meet students’ current and future needs. To enhance its capability to design and deliver a valuable placement system, school leaders need to empower and engage mathematics educators in the decision process. The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that will draw from the quality management literature to provide a rationale for creating a placement system that is sustainable for students in their learning, as well as for the sustainability of the mathematics program in education. In particular, the literature review will examine systems and complexity theory, value co‐creation, decision making, and sustainability.This abstract contributes to the track focus of researching the connectedness of quality management and sustainable development. This focus relates to the topic: Synergies between Quality, Quality Management and Sustainability.