"Human capital" is quickly becoming the new site-based management, a popular strategy from the 1980s and 1990s that sought to increase autonomy in schools and spread decision making more widely. While few are sure what human capital means, everyone craves it, has a model to deliver it, and is quick to tout its restorative powers. It is trendy and impressive sounding, but too often it means recycling familiar nostrums or half-baked ideas with new jargon. What is needed instead is a serious effort to rethink what the teaching profession should look like in the twenty-first century. (Contains 10 notes.)