Education school professors in general and curriculum and instruction experts in particular are major forces in dictating the "what" and "how" of U.S. education. Although they wield immense power over what is actually taught in the classroom, these professors are senior members of a field that lacks many features of a fully developed profession. The judgments of education "experts" frequently appear to be unconstrained and sometimes altogether unaffected by objective research. The first section of this essay provides examples from reading and mathematics curricula that show experts dispensing unproven methods and flitting from one fad to another. The middle section describes how experts, for ideological reasons, have shunned some solutions that do display robust evidence of efficacy. The following sections show how public impatience has forced other professions to "grow up" and accept accountability and scientific evidence. The paper concludes with a plea to develop education into a mature profession. (Contains 27 endnotes.) (SLD)