This brief editorial suggests that educational research has allowed itself to be constructed in a very narrow way, that seeks, sometimes despite itself, even when the research is of excellent quality, to support the underlying neoliberal values and practices that support its current educational regime. Rather than lamenting this state of affairs, or indicating possible alternatives that are nevertheless not being, and may very unlikely ever to be, followed (the dubious preoccupation of much philosophy of education); perhaps a more honest, brutal and politically relevant response would be a critical analysis of why and how this educational apparatus has evolved and what its effects are felt to be.