In this article, in which I draw on a keynote address to the 2022 Australian Teacher Education Association conference, I take up the challenge to provoke conversations about and advocate for public teacher education. I call for a disruption to accountability discourses that locate teaching and teacher education as a contemporary public policy problem that presuppose regimes of accreditation and compliance will address perceived issues. This article offers a counterpoint to these debates and shifts attention to the critical role of teacher educators and the importance of reclaiming public teacher education.