Abstract: In the process of the digital transformation of education, the tension between instrumental rationality and value rationality constitutes the core contradiction. Embeded deeply in the educational field through its inherent logic of quantification, optimization, and standardization, digital technology has driven the continuous expansion of instrumental rationality, which has gradually become the dominant logic in educational practice. In contrast, the core of value rationality has been on the wane, plunging education into an ethical dilemma characterized by "data supremacy" and "efficiency first." Teachers and students, as subjects of education, have been alienated into data producers or passive technology users, and the humanistic essence of education has been eroded. The emergence of this dilemma is not accidental but the result of the deep resonance and mutual collusion between technological instrumental rationality, the logic of capital's large-scale profit-seeking, and the performance management logic of the administrative system. To break through this predicament, it is necessary to construct a dynamic balance mechanism of"value rationality as the foundation and instrumental rationality as the means": reconstructing concepts to anchor the original aspiration of educating people, designing systems to consolidate the bottom line of values, promoting subject awareness to cultivate critical digital literacy, and advocating technology for good to reshape ethical orientation. Ultimately, this will drive the digital transformation of education to shift from"instrument-driven" to "value-led, " realize the organic integration of efficiency pursuit and humanistic care, and enable the digital transformation of education to truly serve the ultimate mission of"the all-round development of people."