This article aims to clarify concerns regarding what constitutes acceptable scholarship in education at a time when such scholarship is under challenge from publications and institutions with a strong bias toward policy advocacy. This is accomplished by examining the Fordham Foundation--supported publication "Whole-Language High Jinks" and the accompanying promotional literature. In order to do so, use is made of discourse analysis as a method of inquiry--an approach that facilitates examining the manner in which Fordham and its president, Chester Finn, endeavor to shape the debate and determine the parameters of the public discussion of school reform.