Calculating the Future: The Historical Assemblage of Empirical Evidence, Benchmarks & PISA1,2

Abstract

Purpose: —Prominent at the intersections of national educational agencies, higher education, and international educational performance assessments are two reform standards: “benchmarks” determining optimal student performance, and “empirical evidence” for determining the quality of reform practices. These two notions are often taken as connecting policy and research to effective changes in many countries. The article examines the historical and cultural principles about educational change and its sciences embedded in these standards through examining OECD's PISA and the McKinsey & Company reports that draw on PISA's data. Findings/Originality/Value: —First, the reports express salvation themes associated with modernity; that is, the promise of a better future through governing the present. The promise is to provide nations with data and models to achieve social equality, economic prosperity, and a participatory democracy. Second, the promise of the future is not descriptive of some present reality but to fabricate the universal characteristics about society and individuals. The numbers embody social and psychological categories about a desired unity of all students. Third, the “empirical evidence” of the international assessment entails a particular notion of science and “evidence”; one that paradoxically uses the universals in comparing and creating divisions.