The conclusions presented in a book entitled Inequality, written by Jencks, et al., call for a critical analysis of the popular beliefs regarding schools and schooling as a means to achieve the social, economic, and cultural goals of the American Dream. This meritocratic system offers equal opportunities but may yield unequal results. In the Jencks study, educational opportunities, educational attainment, occupational status, income, and job satisfaction were all found to be unequally distributed among individuals. These inequalities are real, even though their causes may be questioned, and they have implications for career education, which is, like faith in schooling, presented as a facilitator of the meritocratic ideal. Because it can exert no influence over the working world, it is likely that career education will act as a conservative force to maintain the very societal inequalities it was designed to overcome. The achievement of equality will require more radical social and economic changes than mere school reforms offered by career education. (Author/EC)