The software was actually an early warning system for students (software that detects anomalies in a student's progress). For instance, if a student suddenly started doing bad in three courses it signals different things than if a student starts doing bad in only one course.

You could normalize data to get relative values across teachers and classes. The intent was to find individual students or classes that needed more resources or attention. It was never to get people fired, but the unions fear that's how it will be used.