Framed by the mantra of 'Building back Better' (BBB) the COVID-19 Pandemic has inspired myriad proposals to transform education systems for the future. We interrogate the phrase 'building back better', focusing on its origins and application within crisis narratives. We analyse responses to the pandemic published by influential global agencies focusing on their agendas and visions for the future of education. We identify the common and divergent elements in their narratives, illustrating how the crisis was used to promote each organisation's specific interests, and how these narratives were sustained through strategic silences and the selective use of evidence. Whilst the pandemic was used to promote the different longstanding agendas of those agencies, we argue that overall it was used to constrain the future as a privatised techno-utopia, rather than build towards a new vision.