ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the obsession with data—what J. Muller calls a metric fixation—is nothing more than a wish for certainty, a desire to precisely calibrate and measure educational outcomes in ways that narrow and standardise education. It focuses on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is contributing to a narrow and misguided view of the purposes of education, the standards of Australian education, and the policy approaches needed to maintain and enhance quality. In Australia, for the past decade the self-evident starting point for debates about education has been the claim that standards in Australian education are declining relative to other countries. As a consequence of the restricted focus of the tests, PISA narrows and standardises curriculum and pedagogy.
