With this article, we challenge the successful implementation of critical perspectives in an increasingly neoliberal and neoconservative educational climate. Although many teacher education programs challenge teachers to be critical and to empower students, current top-down accountability practices and policy mandates do not allow teachers the freedom to do so. Are we just setting teachers up to fail? Through our analyses of teacher accreditation practices in the United States, we highlight examples of the contradictory measures set through the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to prepare teachers for diverse populations. We question why social foundations of education and multicultural education, both disciplines that we believe capable of forming critically conscious teachers, are not more prevalent in teacher education programs. In a climate where critique becomes insubordination, we argue for spaces of resistance in both teacher preparation programs and in the classroom.