This article presents statements by President Dmitry A. Medvedev at the meeting of the Council on the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy on the development of education, health care, and demography, and at the ceremony on the occasion of the launching of the Year of the Schoolteacher in Russia, held at the Russian A.I. Hertzen State Pedagogical University in the framework of the work of the first Pedagogical Assembly. This article also presents discussions and data on schoolteachers and teacher education in Russia. (Contains 1 figure, 2 tables, and 3 notes.) [This article was translated by Kim Braithwaite.]