Similar to other organizations, schools are facing an abundance of data: Assessment data, parent surveys, school building data, teacher background data etc. The promise of these data is that they can provide school staff with timely updates on the quality of education. At school level it can provide school leaders with information on indicators such as aggregated student achievement results. At the classroom level it can provide teachers and students with information on, for example, the quality of learning in the classroom. Research shows that data use in schools can lead to school improvement in terms of increased student achievement (e.g., Carlson, Borman, & Robinson, 2011; Lai, Wilson, McNaughton, & Hsiao, 2014; Poortman & Schildkamp, 2016). The importance of data use is also stressed at the policy level. Governments have been setting targets, such as “in 2018 at least 80% of the schools are using data”. However, several problems are associated with the rise of (big) data in education. Data are generated faster than school staff can use. By over-emphasizing data use at the policy level, data use has become a goal instead of a tool to improve education. Finally, a major problem is a lack of data literacy: the knowledge and skills needed to collect, analyze, and interpret data, and to make decisions based on these data (Schildkamp & Poortman, 2015). In this paper these problems and possible solutions will be addressed.

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