Punctuated equilibrium’s theory was put forward by western scholars on the basis of western political system. This theory is widely used to study the process of political formulation and policy change. This theory focuses on the long-term policy change process, which puts the policy process on the dual basis of political system and bounded rational policy formulation. Applying this theory to analyze the changes of China’s basic education policy since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it is found that it has gone through three major stages: policy balance period, policy discontinuity period and policy new balance period, showing an obvious development vein of punctuated equilibrium. By studying the historical changes of long-term equilibrium and short-term mutation of China’s basic education policy, we can find its internal mechanism.