In this essay, we conduct a brief analytical review of teacher preparation programs, which claim to prepare lifelong culturally responsive teachers. Initial evaluation revealed factors limiting program success, they include: deeply embedded dominant ideological assumptions, use of traditional methods to train teachers, inability to understand or work toward non-hegemonic social relations and a pervasive and closed neoliberal epistemology limiting diversity in the preparation programs and profession. Finally, we critique existing understandings of teacher education, consider alternatives in philosophy, structure and function for preparation programs and critical humanism as a framework for working with teachers, to transform indoctrinating and dehumanizing educational practices.