It is often taken for granted that teaching self-regulated learning pedagogy supports student empowerment and individual human agency. As a result, researchers are almost exclusively focused on improving self-regulated learning pedagogical interventions. There is little consideration of the ethical and ideological implications of such instruction. For one year, I worked with a secondary English teacher who taught in an urban school that served 100% African American students from an economically disadvantaged community. I conducted interviews and observations with the teacher-participant in order to strategically suggest ways to integrate self-regulated learning pedagogy in her classroom. The teacher-participant rejected suggestions to integrate such instruction because it aligned with the logic of efficiency and productivity, was based on normative processes, and precluded her from developing meaningful relationships with her students--all of which she aligned directly with a neoliberal rationality or the effects of neoliberalism in schools. This case study invites reflections on how neoliberalism can be tied to a seemingly unproblematic pedagogical commitment. (Contains 1 note.)