In a time of increased federal enforcement of United States Education, education legislation has come to define and construct students, teachers, and curriculum in specific ways. The narratives of science and efficiency have come to dominate how education is defined and implemented. From explicit manifestations found in curriculum and teacher development, to implicit assumptions working within our most basic ideas about education, the predominate paradigm of science and efficiency has come shape students, teachers, and curriculum in limiting and dangerous ways. Acknowledgement and appreciation of the existence of diverse interpretations and the very democratic principles upon which our nation is founded are at stake. A close look at federal education policy shows a clear trend: the structure and ethos of the market economy has been transposed onto American schools. Some consequences of this trend: the institutionalization of science and efficiency as the only valid means of interpreting what schools do and the people who populate them; the invalidation of any inquiry, pedagogy, or course of study that isn't scientific; and the disappearance of humanitarian perspectives from U.S. Education.