In the United States, as public demands for quality teachers have escalated, there has been a corresponding increase in national policy efforts to tie the standards of student success to teacher preparation, licensing, and evaluation. This conceptual paper examines how national authorities used specific policy tools to usurp the state's responsibility to ensure quality teaching practices in local schools. A discussion of policy problems and instruments grounds the analysis of teacher education policy activity since 1992. The "tipping point" theory is used to understand how this change in authority. Recommendations for future teacher education research and policy-making are shared.