Educators, replacing substance with form in their dialogs, argue over symptoms and fail to consider causes. No coherent analysis links practice to social reality, because low-level sloganeering replaces useful analytic language. Particularly offensive, career education, another energy-draining slogan, has clearly reactionary potential. Two developments must be understood: Social problems have been increasingly defined as school problems, keeping educators on the defensive and narrowing the analysis to school practices instead of analyzing schools in society; and, schools have become social credentialling machines, despite evidence that job performance is not significantly related to education. Translating career entry into a school problem (career education) is a bankrupt idea. The illusion that extensive prior training is necessary to master bureaucratic occupations is created by labelling jobs professional. Extended schooling postpones adulthood, while old age comes sooner and sooner. This social problem probably cannot be solved within a capitalist system. Educational sociologists arguing that schools should be relieved of many current responsibilities nevertheless propose a conservative doctrine which assumes a capitalist social system, providing a rationale for reactionary policies; career education provides a slogan, a mechanism for strengthening the status quo, in which the docile teach competitive docility ignoring public interest and humanity. (Author/AJ)