This chapter explores how the notions of control, prediction, and comparison evolved in science and society. Furthermore, how these notions are connected to educational reasoning and how they gain legitimacy. The main focus is on control, prediction, and comparison, although they only constitute a part of the fabric of education. This chapter provides a variety of examples of scientific and societal desires, hopes, and promises directed towards education that has been answered by control, predictions, and comparisons. It also discusses how the development of cybernetics and systems thinking transmogrified into neoliberal reforms and globalisation movement, which in turn laid the foundations for evidence-based policymaking.