The article reviews the general context of the situation that has arisen in Russian education after the new provisions of the Federal Law of 29 December 2012 "On Education in the Russian Federation" went into effect. The law has been enacted in response to the need to develop a new concept of teacher education. Currently, about 270 institutions of higher education, about 30 percent of Russian universities, are implementing programs in the field of teacher education, and the proportion is growing. The author presents the main results of monitoring the activities of teacher training institutions in Russia and notes the new content and organizational challenges facing the project of modernizing teacher education. [This article was translated by Kenneth Cargill.]