5. The new imperialism of data and growth of datafication. When the OECD began its work on the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) it was seeking to better understand the components of high performing school systems. Using standardized testing for a sample of students, it ranked countries by student performance on measures of literacy, numeracy and scientific competency. It then sought to understand why some public education systems performed better than others - identifying and measuring key system components. This then created a "racetrack" for countries and jurisdictions which competed with others for position on the PISA league table (Sellar, Thompson and Rutowski, 2017). Some Ministers challenged their teachers to move their country "up the PISA table" (e.g. Wales, Australia) and others saw the PISA data as revealing that they had a "math crisis" or "STEM crisis". OECD now is also assessing what they call "global competencies". There is no doubt that PISA is driving public education policies in many parts of the world rather than simply providing another source of insight. This is just one example of this trend for datafication - "datafication" refers to the use of data in a way that has become increasingly detached from supporting learning and is much more concerned with the management of teacher performance as an end in itself. School systems in various parts of the world - e.g. Australia, England - see data as a management tool to the detriment of teaching and learning.