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In common with other European countries, the governance of education in England may be examined, first, through its public policies, where market choice in schooling and new services for children are its contemporary symbols. In recent years, however, a fundamental reordering of educational services has taken place with a reliance on performance and quality assurance and the consequent rise in the need for data. This change in the governance of education, which has been rapid in England, is more a process than a solution, and is dependent on the data infrastructure underlying it. This paper argues that the state and its partners, because of the increase in data, are able to “see” education in a way that they have never been able to before. What was opaque to the government in the past is now transparent to governance in the present. Finding new ways of measuring system performance has meant that the state has combined its capacity to illuminate, “seeing” education, with its goals for the future. Transparency and vision have another effect, known to any student of measurement: what is measured is simultaneously altered. As education is seen and reimagined, it is simplified and rearranged in series of data-producing activities throughout the system, by the teacher, the school, the local authority and the center, with the help of private companies and specialists.