Teachers are increasingly recognized as the most important in-school factor in student achievement, yet the quality of the country's K-12 teaching force is not up to snuff. Much of the blame has been placed on education schools, which have come under fire for failing to produce enough high-performing teachers. Both initial certification programs, which happen mostly at the undergraduate level, and master's in teaching degrees, which provide additional training to existing teachers, have only a limited impact on teacher effectiveness. There are a handful of celebrated programs, but these produce only a small percentage of total teachers. At the same time, tuition continues to rise. Education schools have long been propped up by a variety of government subsidies, from federal support for tuition to state grants. Recent budget pressures have chipped away at these funds, revealing the true cost of these schools to students. From a societal perspective, such programs appear to be a questionable investment given the limited evidence that they, at least in the aggregate, are actually creating effective teachers. Thus teacher preparation faces both cost and quality problems. Online teacher-preparation programs present an opportunity to change these dynamics. Innovative players are entering the space, including two that are profiled in this article: the Teachers College at Western Governors University and the MAT@USC at University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education.